Harry Potter and the New Beginnings
by Kyroath
Summary: After the fall of Voldemort, Harry Potter was tired of it all and all he desired was to leave - his fame, family, friends. Newly minted Master of Death just wanted to run away, but nothing was permanent for him - not even death. Under daunting circumstances Veil of Death became his salvation. Now, in a land he doesn't recognize, what will he change?
1. Chapter 1 - The End and the Beginning

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

"_Sectumsempra!_"

Two curses met in the middle, and once again the battle became a struggle of wills. Around them, the remains of Hogwarts illuminated by the light of the curses. The fights around Harry Potter and Voldemort gradually slowed down and combatants started watching the titans fighting each other.

Their fight was the main reason for the destruction of Hogwarts. The spells and curses thrown by the two were destroying, burning, freezing everything in their path reduced the once proud castle and place of learning to nothing more than rubble.

The fight was not slowing down, but in the end, the arrogance and greed of the Dark Lord became his fall. With the horcruxes that tethered his soul to the mortal realm gone Voldemort was mortal once more since he was 16. The last acquisition from his unending pursuit of power, the Elder Wand, Deathstick, Wand of Death was not his as much as he thought. Voldemort could use it, certainly, but he was not its master.

The Elder Wand was Harry Potter's.

And the Wand refused to kill its master. This desire caused a curse to be underpowered and Harry's attacks won over it. The _Sectumsempra_, a dark cutting curse that caused the wound to not heal until the counter-curse was applied, cut the wand arm of Voldemort. Following _Expelliarmus_ rid him of the possibility of gaining his wand back, and a _Confringo_ reduced him to nothing more than blood and gore.

A momentary burst of magic flowed into him but after not noticing any difference he let it go as a figment of his imagination.

The war was over, Harry thought. He simply stood there and watched Voldemort's remains rain down.

There was a moment of absolute silence.

"Aaaaaahhh!" A scream sounded, soon joined by others. The followers of Dark Lord were holding their arms around were the _Dark Mark_ was. The Death Eaters were twitching and spasming as if they were being held under the _Cruciatus_. As their screams increased in volume, some of them stopped moving followed by others - they were dead.

This, on top of everything, made Harry believe that Voldemort was really gone. Voldemort would never rid of his precious Death Eaters.

As he turned around to leave, the celebrations were just beginning. The _Boy-Who-Lived_ just became _Man-Who-Won_.

_God, I hope these end quickly,_ Harry thought as he was leaving.

* * *

One week later, the celebrations did not appear to be ending any time soon. The ceremonies were becoming a quick annoyance in Harry's opinion. As soon as he left the hospital, he was dragged and hounded by countless reporters and people who wanted to award him. People were ready to throw positions at him too, some wanted him to become the new Minister of Magic, Chief Warlock, the Mugwump for Britain or even the Headmaster of Hogwarts - never mind the fact that school was in ruins and he didn't even finish the school regardless of his level. In fact, Harry was attending the latest award ceremony at the ministry. This was the one that he could not refuse, sadly.

"And the newest addition to the august group of the holders of the _Order of Merlin, First Class_ \- Harry Potter!"

The resounding applause was earth-shattering. Harry felt as if his eardrums were about to burst. As the announcer started regaling his story of the fight against Voldemort, Harry couldn't help but feel grudging respect against the Dumbledore if this was what he had gone through after his victory over Grindelwald. No matter how much he hated the man, this was pure torture in his opinion and not even his worst enemies deserved it.

Of course, his opinion of Dumbledore was strictly private, to the outside world he was the heir of the last Light Lord even if Dumbledore did not refer to himself with the title. No one knew his hand in the death of Dumbledore - and he had no wish to change it.

"Mr. Potter, what do you plan on doing now that the war is over?"

"Mr. Potter, will you be taking over the positions of your mentor, the late Albus Dumbledore?"

"Do you have anyone in your life at the moment? Our readers are curious."

"Will you be taking your Lordships?"

_Ahh,_ he thought, _time to go back to the world of idiots._

* * *

After the following three months, Harry was about to declare himself a Dark Lord. He thought that the hounding of the public would decrease as the time passed, after all it was what happened to Dumbledore. His neglect over his apparent age became his falling. Here he was, unattached, very rich, owner of two Lordships and quite young - prime gossip material. Wherever he went the reporters followed, the ones like Rita constantly demanding interviews.

Disappearing was impossible too, with a quick bribe to the ministry officials who were all too willing to find Harry Potter the countrywide detection wards was immediately primed to the position of one Harry Potter.

Leaving the country was even more impossible. The _Order of Merlin, First Class_ was as much of an award as a collar - whenever a holder or the equivalent of it in other countries tried to enter another country they tripped a ward. The official purpose of this was so that the country in question could welcome them but it was apparent to all that no country wanted someone with that much power unchecked in their own lands. And whenever the news of him appeared, the reporters followed.

So yes, Harry was quite seriously contemplating the murder of any and all reporters until none came after him anymore. With his lack of friends, it was becoming quite unbearable.

His friendship with Hermione and Ron started falling apart after his fourth year when they ignored him during the summer under the orders of Dumbledore. This showed him that they valued Dumbledore much more than him, and a quick application of Legilimency answered every question he had.

Ron was quite happily accepting the money Dumbledore gave him for spying on him, justifying it as showing concern to Harry.

Hermione was much more conflicted on the topic but nevertheless, she had accepted money in the past and it was the worst kind of betrayal.

The betrayals made it nearly impossible for him to create new friendships even if he pretended otherwise until the death of Dumbledore.

He was alone.

* * *

The following three months were enlightening for him - he found out a terrifying truth about the feeling of magic after the defeat of Voldemort.

He was the master of all three Hallows. In other words, the _Master of Death_. This included, on top of being able to use the Hallows to their full capacity as they were completely fused into him, he was also immortal. A bonafide immortal, not like the pseudo-immortality given by _horcruxes_ or the _Philosopher's Stone_. He tried nearly everything in his power to kill himself and unite with his parents and Sirius, but even the worst ways didn't put him down for more than a few minutes.

His body was suspended in its form, and with the exception of his now glowing _Avada Kedavra_ green eyes, there were no scars or equivalent on him. His injuries slowly healed until he died, then his body literally grew back from the biggest part.

So he came upon the _Veil of Death_, the same Veil Sirius fell through, the one that was located in the Death Chamber where the most dangerous criminals were executed through.

He gazed upon the white curtain and glanced his necklace. His whole fortune and everything he owned was in those two necklaces, one for Potters and another for Blacks. If the Veil was a portal to another place, he was not going there without anything he owned, if it was to the afterlife then he was not leaving his fortune for others to take.

Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes.

Harry opened his eyes as he stepped through the unknown.

* * *

Whatever he expected from the other side, it was definitely not the King's Cross Station. After gaping around the white train station for some time, he stopped and sighed. _This again?_

Thankfully, it didn't seem like Dumbledore was around this time annoying Harry even after his death. However, it didn't seem like anyone was around.

_Still, this is the Death's dominion. Shouldn't it be here?_

"Indeed." A feminine voice came from nowhere and everywhere.

"Who is it?!" Startled, Harry half-shouted into the nothingness as the station slowly dissolved around him. Taking a moment to think after his outburst, he continued in a normal voice. "Death?"

A female silhouette slowly appeared from the mists and consolidated in front of him. Seeing her, he could swear that Veelas had nothing on this beauty. While her figure was amazing, it was her eyes that drew him in. Those grayish white eyes seemed like they were holding all the sadness and joy. They seemed to hold infinite serenity but also every emotion in a paradoxical way.

As he was mesmerized by her beauty, she smiled. "Yes, I am the one you know as Death."

After her answer, he tried to understand that he was meeting _the Death_. It was enough to rattle him deeply, but soon it gave place to deep resignation and some excitement. Perhaps it was time for him to join his parents and Sirius once more.

They gazed each other, neither speaking. When they did, it was at the same time.

""I am sorry.""

Speaking over each other stumped both of them, but Death soon recovered. "Why would you be sorry?" she asked Harry in surprise. In her knowledge, there was no reason for him to apologize.

Harry felt amused for a second as he even managed to stump Death herself, but he soon turned solemn as he remembered why he apologized in the first place.

"I don't know the veracity of the story of Hallows and the Master of Death, but if it is real then I must say I am sorry. I never intended to have the title, and the more I thought on the subject the worse I felt about it. Death should have no master."

Death's expression seemed to clear for a bit and her eyes held mirth in them as he spoke. When he repeated his apologies, she laughed. Her laugh was clear and beautiful, filled with mirth.

"Harry, Harry. The story and the title are true, but I never expected you to apologize for something you never wished. I had come to terms with it. After all, who would be better than the _Chosen of Magic_ to be my _Master_?"

Her words stumped Harry. Chosen of Magic? What the hell was that? Not noticing his confusion, Death continued. "You don't need to be sad about it either, after all, it was determined from your birth. Why would you carry the eyes of Death otherwise?"

"You're referring to the color of my eyes, right? And what does the _Chosen of Magic_ means? I've never heard of it before..."

"You're correct about your eyes. About the _Chosen of Magic_, have you never wondered why magic always felt like home to you? Why you never struggled with it? It was after all, with the permission of Magic herself that you magic never fought against you for control and Magic always talked to you even though you for the most parts never listened - although that could be attributed to not knowing how."

That was troubling, to say the least for Harry. He never assumed he was particularly talented, but it seems like he really wasted a lot of opportunities. On top of that, he didn't know what those titles meant either.

"The titles... They are gifts and curses, and mine I am really sorry about. You probably know about it already, don't you?" Death asked.

"Immortality..." Harry whispered. He felt like he was going into shock - living forever was never his dream. He just wanted to live a simple life, die and meet with the small circle of people that loved him.

He simply stared Death in the eyes and his vision slowly blurred and filled with tears. He promised himself to never cry since the days from his cupboard, but as the enormity of eternity slowly filled his mind - together with all the pain he felt over the years, the constant loneliness, he simply cried on his knees.

"Why... why, why me? What have I done to deserve it?" Harry asked in a broken and sad voice, as much as he hated showing weakness.

Death, in a show of emotion he wouldn't expect, knelt and embraced him. "It's going to be alright, Harry it's going to be alright..." She consoles him while rubbing small circles on his back.

As he continued to cry, another set of arms embraced him from the back. "You have no need to be sad, my Chosen. You shall be alone nevermore." Death threw a look to the owner of the new voice but didn't argue, instead choosing to return her attention back to Harry.

Harry stopped crying after for what felt like hours to him and felt like he vented some of the sadness he always carried. With red and somewhat puffy eyes, he returned his attention to the new woman in front of him.

The newcomer was a beauty on the level of Death herself, and her blue eyes seemed like they were holding the profoundness of the whole Universe. Her hair was the same color as her eyes and was very strikings.

Before Harry could ask the obvious question, she introduced herself. "I am the one you would call Magic, although there have been many names given to me like Death."

Harry felt like he should've been more shocked, but he honestly had no strength in him to be anymore. At this point, he was simply going with the flow although crying in front of two beautiful women, no matter how utterly ancient they were was somewhat embarrassing.

"So, will you be explaining what is going on know? Why did you meet with me? And what does being your chosen means, Lady Magic?" He asked respectfully. After all, from their response, they were feeling genuinely sorry and it would not do to accuse anyone without knowing everything.

Magic and Death both smiled knowingly, and they seemed quite happy about him. Magic soon answered him, "We met you here because you're connected to both of us - you know your connection with Death as her Master, but you don't know your connection with me. It is quite similar to the one you have with her - after all, I cannot be superior to Death. You can be considered my Master, but I use the term my Chosen because that's what you are. I chose you after seeing your life. You were the perfect one to represent me in the mortal world and I represent magic. And there is one aspect Magic always is, it is balanced. It has both dark and light - always fighting for dominance, always in balance".

Harry felt confused, however. "Aren't you the Magic and Death? Why do you need a Master or a Chosen?" It was unthinkable to him, as both should be above everything.

Hearing his question, Death smiled once again remembering his apology before. "We need a Master, Harry because it represents our domains. For me, as long as you're living and connected to the Magic of life, there shall be no one that could beat me - no one that could forever elude my grasp, except you. You shall be the last one, the one that will die with us."

"And I need a Chosen because Magic must always be balanced - for breaking the balance has overreaching consequences that could destroy everything. And as long as you exist, Magic always be balanced - thus both of us choosing the same person. My Chosen will never be apart from Magic, because Magic is always a part of him, and Death's Chosen can never die for he is the Master of Death and Death has no power over him. Thus the balance is preserved forevermore."

Harry stared at them for some time, then started chuckling before it turned into a deep belly laugh. "Hahaha. Hahahahahaha!"

He couldn't believe it. It could only be called his luck for this to happen to him. He still hadn't come to terms with his newfound immortality, but this was so much impossible he couldn't help but laugh.

After gathering his wits, he started thinking about the implications of it. "What do you want me to do exactly, then?"

"Nothing."

"What."

For all the replies he expected ranging from protecting the balance of the Universe or hunt for transgressors, Harry did not think that there was nothing expected for him to do.

"Indeed, you don't have to do anything. However, there is a small... complication if you will, that happened because you entered the Veil of Death. The Veil does exactly what its name means - it is a gateway to my realm, to the nothingness. However, as we said before, you need to stay in the living realm." Death explained to him.

"Taking a breath, Magic continued. For that, we will be sending you back. The only problem is that you cannot be Harry Potter anymore - because when you leave the time period or the place will be much different from when and where you left. You can consider the Universe changing to another track if you will, you will be the start of the change. You will need a new identity - a new name."

Harry stopped for a bit. Time travel? From their words, it sounded like he wasn't even going to be on Earth! With this, he could see his parents even if they wouldn't know he was their son - he could save them from Voldemort.

He needed a new name. Since his last name was given to him by his parents, he decided his new name would be from his godfather. _Hadrian_, he thought, _Hadrian Black_.

"Alright then," Magic answered to his decision. We will be sending you now. "We can give you the information you'll need when you wake up next time."


	2. Chapter 2 - A long time ago,

The white world dissolved around Hadrian and he stumbled to the ground. As he rose he swore that any kind of magical transport excluding broomsticks hated him. Especially since Magic herself created this last mode of transportation.

Hadrian was not amused.

Taking care to find his balance, Hadrian inspected his new home. It was a lush planet with some serious storms going in the distance.

"Tython is the name of this world," informed Magic, "it is my main world in the galaxy. Those storms you see in the distance is the result of an imbalance in the Magic or the Force as the locals call it." Hadrian could hear the insult at the name the Force.

"Why do they call it that?" He asked.

"There is no reason. They decided that using Magic's proper name was heresy, a backwater way of calling it, thus the name _the Force_."

"I see." He did not see.

"My bloody name is Magic, not Force!" Hadrian ignored Magic's moanings.

The thunders in the distance returned his attention to reality. The weather was somewhat cold even in the day, and he did not want to test the weather of the night. Even with warming charms, he would be hard pressed to spend the night comfortably.

First things first. Hadrian needed a new house. Thankfully his necklaces held enough ward-stones for him to inscribe permanent transfiguration and expansion charms.

A few hours later when the sun was starting to set and the twin moons of the Tython rose. Hadrian could admit that he did a pretty bang job at his new home in such a short time. It was a three-story mansion with a single basement floor. The basement was as the ritual chamber - as well as a dungeon. The first floor contained the enchanting and potions labs. The second and third floor was his living quarters.

The wards allowed him to expand the number of floors in the future so he was not worried about the size of his home. Right now it was about having a roof to sleep under.

The mansion was quite spartan with red and grey paint on the walls. There were little to none furniture in the inside except for his bedroom.

He spent most of his time tuning the wards around - he had no desire of getting attacked in the middle of the night. His ward set was quite simple and did not have too much in the way of firepower, but, it was very good at its main job. Hiding. He layered as many repelling and cloaking wards on top each other as the ward-stone could handle. He was quite happy for how it turned out.

The transfiguration of the house served as a very important test. His connection with Magic was through the roof at the moment. So much that if he concentrated enough he could talk to Magic herself as he discovered in an accident. With the absorption for the Hallows, in this case, the Elder Wand, he had no need for a focus anymore. His whole body was a focus now.

If he was not careful in his casting, the boosting power of the Deathstick overpowered any spell he cast. As the new pond outside could testify.

Hadrian entered his bedroom after rechecking the wards and jumped into his bed.

For the first time in a very long time, the sweet release of sleep came with such ease to him.

Hadrian woke up as the sun was rising. The crescendos of the magic that rose with the dawn were too much of a distraction for him to sleep through.

He went through his morning rituals and went to the kitchen to prepare himself some food. With the stasis charms, he had everything stocked for years, if not centuries. "Magic for the win," he muttered.

After a classic British breakfast a long way home, he sat there drinking a cup of tea. "What now?"

"We have taken you here because it was the world most connected with me," Magic's frown was clear in her tone. "You need a spaceship to leave and finding an intact one might prove to be a challenge."

"Back up a bit. A spaceship?"

"Yes, your only way of leaving this world. It is empty of civilization after all."

_Alright_, Hadrian though, _that was a bit of a problem_. But flying and space together... It was like Hadrian's dreams come true. Hearing it from them was a nice concept, but learning he was going to be flying one soon... Saying Hadrian was excited would be an understatement.

"How do I find one? Would a point-me suffice?" He asked.

"Yes, yes it should. But there may be another way I think..." Her voice petered out. Hadrian waited for her to continue.

"You can use a point-me if you like - it would lead you to where you want. But, there is another way that locals of this galaxy generally use. Call it a local discovery, if you will. Open yourself to the Magic completely. Not just your own magic, but the wild and ambient magic of the world too. Instead of trying to talk to me, however, ask the connection for guidance." Magic instructed.

After understanding what she told him, he was immediately reminded of the time he connected her by mistake. He let himself open to magic freely at that time too.

Hadrian sank into meditation. He started letting the control of his magic freely - if there was anyone in the area they would feel the complete brunt of his aura. Time slowly passed with his aura increasing around. As he let his control go, the ambient magic started filling him in the same way his own did - and immediately started pushing him towards somewhere like an excited puppy expecting a walk.

Hadrian opened his eyes and rose from meditation. Even out of meditation and focus, the push towards a certain direction was always there in the back of his mind. He had a feeling now that he opened himself the Magic could direct him even without his inquiry.

He had a question, however. "Magic, - is there something else I could call you? - is this your doing?"

His suspicion was valid, after all, the Magic herself was the being in question.

"No, it is not. The connection you made was to the part of the magic that is not entirely sentient - as it should be. I am _the Magic,_ representation of the Magic to interact with the world at large. I am many things, but not the wild magic you use. You will understand it better in the future." Magic continued. "You can call me Heca. Hecate is the name I love most but it is such a mouthful." She said laughing.

"You can call me Mórrígan, or simply Morri. I am partial to that name since it is the name of the sovereign-goddess. And Mórrígan is close to your home too, it is an Irish name after all." Death piped in.

"So the Death is a vain woman, huh. Who knew?" Hadrian said with a mischievous smile.

Morri laughed.

Thinking he wasted enough time, Hadrian took off to find himself a new spaceship. There was a distinct lack of thunderbolts and storms in the area. "Huh, so this was what Heca meant by the planet in need of a balance," he muttered.

He did not know how he was balanced in Magic, but if this was the result of his aura he was sure it was true.

Tython was a beautiful sight with ever-changing weather in the distance, with many natural and artificial biomes. Hadrian found himself unknowingly immersing in the beauty and forgetting his time. He could not remember last when he was this relaxed. As he neared what he thought as a desert he saw black blocks in the distance, clearly, they were man-made. They were not in the direction he was going.

"You can explore it if you want," Heca said. "There is no need for you to hurry. You have all the time you need."

The reminder to his immortality ended his good mood. He honestly tried to not think about it since he learned about it, even if the denial was just an escape from reality. The consequences of immortality came into his mind - he would be outliving _everyone_.

"Meh," he muttered. "At least I have enough time to do everything I want." With that, he apparated in the direction of the blocks.

From up close, the blocks were massive. And the mountain-cum-block tower in the middle was penetrating the clouds and even the source of the waterfalls was not visible. It clearly did not look natural.

Walking around the tower netted him in a gate to the inside, most probably going up. There were some scratches that could've been writings on the outside too.

"_Omni interpretaro_" he intoned. The translation spell took hold.

This spell was one of the most obvious examples of magic in his opinion. It had nothing to do with changing the rules of physics or apparent destruction. The spell translated everything that had a meaning. On top of that, translations were never wrong even if the original writing included accents.

He looked upon the principles of it later, and what he learned was nothing short of amazing. The spell made use of the intentions the writer had - it took them and dumped them in spell-caster's mind after sorting them. No matter how much time passed upon the time of writing - it could make someone read everything that had a meaning.

Hadrian shook himself of his academic thoughts. He found himself enjoying the mechanics of Magic more and more since his third year after the _Patronus_. He was still admonishing himself upon his choice of electives.

The writings came into his sight, and he started reading them. This was apparently the entrance to the Akar Kesh - the Temple of Balance of the Je'daii Order. He had no idea what it either of the terms meant, but he could feel the adventure gripping his soul. Making sure he missed nothing, he entered the tower.

Inside was nearly pitch black. Some lights were trying to turn on but it was obvious that power source was not enough to support it - not to mention the disrepair they were in.

"_Lumos,_" Hadrian muttered.

A white blob of light illuminated the inside of the temple. The objects in sight looked fairly old, some even falling to so much deterioration it was impossible to divine their original shape.

There weren't many technological devices around - the entrance and the hall behind seemed to be kept quite spartan, although with how much nature took its course now, it was impossible to tell otherwise.

As he walked deeper Hadrian easily noticed the stairs, but there was no obvious lift mechanism. It seemed like whoever built the temple expected the arrivals either climb the stairs to the top or come with a flying vehicle.

The broomsticks would not carry him to that height and Hadrian had no desire to see whether he could fly or not. Even if he could not die, going splat from that height would definitely hurt.

That left the stairs as the obvious choice, and Hadrian started climbing. The steps were a bit smaller than what he was used to, probably to accommodate the smaller races. Nevertheless, it was a long climb.

On the top of the stairs was a room that was open to the outside - _it probably doubled as a hangar_, Hadrian speculated.

The lights were on, and the power situation seemed to be alright, which Hadrian was not expecting. He could feel the magic on nearly everything holding them together. Some of them even looked to be working on magic alone!

He wandered the empty halls with amazement. The building and everything around felt like they were from a science fiction movie, his innocent wonder was so much like his first time seeing Hogwarts.

Hadrian decided to check the main computer.

The interface was fairly easy to use and even with his lack of experience he quickly became proficient and started reading.

It seemed like this temple was one of the nine temples of the Je'daii Order, an Order made up of _force sensitives,_ or magicals. This temple served as a place to debate philosophy and sometimes as a place of neutrality. There were no fights allowed inside.

The founding core of the Je'daii Order seemed to be based on the balance of light and dark - which the subscribers named of each themselves after the twin moons of Tython, Ashla for light side and Bogan for the dark side.

There where records of many debates on the subject, as well as teachings on balance which the Je'daii Masters usually gave after their meditation on the side of the main pool.

Hadrian decided to meditate near the pool as well - the small number of debates he read impressed him quite a lot. He left the console and kneeled near the pool.

Meditation was not something he did as a habit. His only experience with it came from his readings. He learnt that some of the rituals required an absolute emptiness, as well as the speculated improvement meditation, gave to a person's magic. He tried it a few times but couldn't get himself to relax. There was always something going on that demanded his attention, and with the threat of Voldemort always on the horizon he couldn't afford to waste any time.

He sat there and waited, slowly relaxing with the sounds of water. He felt like he was slowly shedding his sadness and the remaining tenseness he always had - he didn't know how much on a hair trigger he was before.

As his consciousness sank into a mix of deep sleep and absolutely clearness, he felt it. His magic, as well as the underlying magic of the universe. He could sense the light and dark slowly circling each other in his core - neither of them was battling for superiority. It stumped him for a moment, then, in a moment of absolute clarity, he knew this was what Heca meant by him being in balance.

That title changed him, just like how being Master of Death did.

The balance did not mean him not having any emotions or vice versa. He was in balance, his magic as well as his emotions.

His magic was as much capable of destruction and pain, as it was for creation and healing. He could use his magic to do anything if he already knew how to - his knowledge and experience was his only limits.

His emotions were similar to his magic - the strong emotions of his dark side was tempered by the absolute serenity of his light. He could feel the emotions, but he would never act on them without a clear mind.

He was actually amazed and not angry at the Heca for the change she made, of course, it could be the result of his affected emotional state, but he didn't think so.

It was not so much as changing what he felt as an overpowered and always active Occlumency. It did not protect his mind, instead, it protected his emotions.

He slowly changed his focus to the outside. The magic, Force, he corrected himself as it was what the locals called it, was devastated. The planet was infused with so much Force that it was nearly visible. This much Force required a balance - and the people on the planet was influencing it to their side. Any change, big or small affected and devastated the local area.

This was why the storms he saw in the distance never affected him.

He slowly rose from his position, and with a last glance to the serene environment, he apparated to his bedroom. The sun had already set and the darkness of the night was gradually claiming the planet.

Hadrian took a book on Arithmancy from his necklace and slowly sank into his bed...

* * *

He apparated back to the entrance of the Temple of Balance not long after the dawn of the new day.

The place he needed to go seemed like the Vur Tepe from the records he saw in the Temple of Balance.

In other words, he needed to go to the Forge.

The Temple of Balance was quite near where he entered the new world, but he couldn't trust it to be near anymore.

He took his broom from his necklaces - the next generation of Bolt series broomsticks, the Thunderbolt.

It was quite a fast broom, though not as nimble as the Firebolt.

He started flying to where he felt the Forge was, the Temple of Balance, unfortunately, did not contain any maps of Tython so he couldn't apparate directly to Forge.

"May as well," he muttered. "At least the view is nice."

While flying (and apparating long distances whenever he could), he noticed a peculiarity.

"Where are all the animals?" He wondered.

"They are afraid of your aura," Heca answered. "Since yesterday you let yourself loose and it shines very brightly to anything that could sense it, and everything on Tython is Force sensitive."

"Ah."

That would explain the relaxation he felt. Even back in Britain, he couldn't let all of his aura leak, first for not letting everyone know his power, then for avoiding detecting during Voldemort's rise.

He shook his head. "Well, who cares."

The deserts gave place to a lush forest, it gave place to empty plains which ocean was visible in the distance.

After the plains came a mountain range - red mountains with rust coloured ziggurat on top overlooking the whole mountain range. The Forge. The mountains seemed to extend to the distance and slowly became snow filled, but his business was in the Temple that was in front of him.

The ziggurat was massive with the top of the volcano entering its bottom. Smoke vents were visible everywhere with four massive chimneys on the roof. He could see an entrance on the ground, but thankfully the height of the hangar was not much.

Inside the hangar was quite similar to the previous temple - the lifts and the stairs led to the opening. It was obvious that the architecture style was the same even to his untrained eyes.

The main difference was the number of pipes and the sizes of the doors - it was clear that this place was meant to transport massive amounts inside.

Following the hangar, Hadrian found a central room that opened to many smaller rooms with a stair going downwards, presumably to the volcano.

The temperature of the building was not extreme considering there was an active volcano beneath, meaning the temperature regulators worked and the power was on.

Following one of the halls that had a sign said Archives, Hadrian entered a massive room with many servers visible with countless consoles attached. It was an impressive sight, to say the least. He could easily imagine hundreds of people filling the consoles.

He accessed the nearest console - the first thing he noticed was the substantial amount of resources inside the Forge compared to what some of the plans needed.

Searching around, he found what he needed fairly quickly a ship that could be piloted alone - although the said ship needed quite a bit of raw materials as well as an amount of... Force?

It was quite confusing.

Apparently, the Forge was able to take the inputted amount of Force and use it to strengthen the materials. Quite an interesting concept. The goblin made objects came to his mind.

Going back to the Forge computers, he started the construction - and curled upon a console to read new information.

When the construction was complete, Hadrian was much more of a learned man. The Forge contained the blueprints to nearly every technology he could imagine and the summaries on how they worked were enlightening even if they were not complete.

The next most interesting part was the temples themselves and why those places were chosen. The ships called Tho Yor apparently brought pilgrims from all over the galaxy for them to learn about the Force - and the ships parked in certain places. As time passed, the new inhabitants of Tython built temples on top of the ships as a way of remembering their roots.

The temples were such,

Akar Kesh, Temple of Balance. Anil Kesh, Temple of Science. Bodhi, Temple of the Arts. Mahara Kesh, The Temple of Healing. Kaleth, Temple of Knowledge. Padawan Kesh, Je'daii Academy. Stav Kesh, Temple of Martial Arts. Qigong Kesh, Temple of Force Skills. Vur Tepe, Forge.

Each contained every scrap of information Je'daii Order has on the subjects - even during the War of the Force (a battle between light and dark, hadn't that felt uncomfortably familiar), they were not touched.

His new plan at the moment was to take every piece of data and the so-called holocrons - that sounded quite similar to wizarding portraits - and learn as much as he could. At least until he felt himself understanding general subjects so that he wouldn't stand out as an outsider immediately.

With that said, he went to see his new home. A large U shaped ship with colossal engines on the back. Its weapons were nothing to scoff at either, the top and side weapons were some of the strongest ones in the database, with the energy cannon at the front being the main weapon of much larger ships.

Inside the ship contained a med-bay, a hangar bay, the cockpit and living quarters as well as a storage bay. Anything that was needed was easily reachable to the everyone in the cockpit, most importantly to the captain.

The ship's engines were a Force-based hyperdrive, in which he understood absolutely nothing about. The only thing he knew about them was that they could follow the Force-guided hyperlanes on top of the regular hyperlanes. The sunlight engines used Force to cool and accelerate, causing them to be very powerful but also somewhat unreliable if the captain was not Force sensitive.

Flying the ship was quite an adventure for him. Thankfully the ship was mostly automatic with only the needed parts required his attention. With the ship using the Force as a fuel source as much as it could, it was quite easy to learn how to fly. Soon he started dipping and rising around the mountain range.

With the ship, visiting the remaining temples and copying the data was much easier and faster. All said and done, everything didn't take more than a week - most of the time was wasted on finding the holocrons. For some reason, they were hidden around the temples.

Hadrian spent the following few months applying as many charms and inscribing every rube he could think of that could be remotely useful. The remaining time where he was either tired or bored was used on reading the available data and decorating his ship and mansion on the planet.

Although he was planning on leaving, he long decided this was going to be his homeworld during his travels - for the simple reason it was nigh impossible to access by non-Force-sensitives and even then it was quite hard to avoid Force storms.

Tython being Heca's main planet was a nice bonus.

After spending nearly a year on Tython, Hadrian was ready to leave and see the sights around the galaxy.


	3. Chapter 3 - in a galaxy far, far away

Aboard the newly named _Black Nomad_, Hadrian was curled on a couch with a tablet in his hand. He was reading on the history of the Galactic Republic from the information on the holonet.

Hadrian took a sip from his tea and placed the cup back onto the table. "Luna, how is the progress?"

Luna was the name of the AI that the ship came with, named after the perhaps only person he knew that wouldn't even think everything going on was weird. He remembered her quite fondly. She belonged to the very few that did not care about his fame. Her only care was her creatures.

"The documents are done, Hadrian. I am compiling a believable background for you at the moment. However, if I may ask a question?"

"Go on."

"Why did you decide to name yourself as just Mr Black? Why not use your own name? Why a company?" Despite being an AI, Hadrian could hear the questioning tone in her voice.

"It is quite simple actually. I do not want anything to connect me to this identity if something goes wrong. On top of that, I would probably be joining the Jedi Order - even if to only know what they can and cannot do. Knowing what happened to them after Je'daii Order would be a bonus. The records indicated they were going to a world called Ossum after all."

"You do know that the Order only accepts the very young, right?"

"It is not a problem."

"I see." Luna murmured sceptically.

As his ship entered the Coruscant airspace, he rose from his seat and vanished the conjured teacup.

The ship continued its descent towards the Coruscant.

"Incoming transmission." Luna alerted.

"Open communications, Luna." Hadrian commanded.

"This is Coruscant Control. Identify yourself and explain the purpose of your visit."

"I am Captain Black aboard the Black Nomad. Purpose of visit, trade and tourism."

There was a moment of silence. Hadrian waited somewhat anxiously as the Control checked his documents.

"Everything is in order, sir. Coruscant Control bids you a good day."

Hadrian released a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Alright. Luna, take us to the docks. It looks like your documents held."

"_Plotting a course_. Of course they did." She sounded affronted that he would even think otherwise.

_First things first,_ Hadrian thought. _I need money to even start with._

They docked to a public dockyard and Hadrian left the ship. He was wearing black pants and a green T-shirt he got from the Muggle world before jumping through the veil. He would've worn the clothes he found in the Temples, but they seemed to be very conspicuous and combat oriented.

He was amazed at seeing the busy streets of Coruscant for the first time. Images from the ship did not do it justice - seeing many, many species walking, running, talking side by side hammered the fact that he was not at Earth.

Locating a gold trader was not very hard - finding one that was willing to buy in the quantities he wanted to sell was. Luna locates one near the centre of the city, close by to the Senate building. From Luna's words, the rich lived near there so it was smart that someone catered the rich opened shop nearby.

While walking he applied an overpowered Notice-Me-Not to his face. It would help protect his identity - he learned that it worked even through recordings. Cameras would be able to record his appearance just fine, but anyone looking at his face would feel the urge to look just about anywhere else.

The building of the trader screamed luxury from the outside, with Twi'lek assistants guiding the visitors. He entered the building.

Inside was just as luxurious. There were gold plated objects everywhere, from the lamps to the carpets. Even the employees working there wore gold. The name and the logo of the company were in the entrance hall above the reception area in a huge font. Elite Exchange.

He walked up to the reception.

The beautiful yellow Twi'lek immediately gave her attention to him. "Welcome to the Elite Exchange, how can I help you?"

"I will be selling gold." Hadrian didn't explain further. It seemed like the receptionist understood his desire, and called an attendant. "Giw'visa will be taking you to the office, sir. Have a nice day."

Hadrian started following the attendant. They were entering the deeper parts of the building - as they went, the luxury levels slowly increased and the number of personal touches from the owner were obvious.

Soon they stopped in front of a door. "This is the office you need, sir."

Nodding, Hadrian went inside.

The office was a clear difference from the outside - the amount of gold and other luxuries were very low. It seemed to be fully business focused - although the couches looked really comfortable the sit.

Behind the table in front of the couches was not surprisingly, a Bothan. As a species that was focused on constantly increasing their power - be it political or economic - an exchange would be an excellent place. He would be constantly rubbing elbows with the elite.

As Hadrian inspected the Bothan, the Bothan was doing the same.

Bothan's eyes were constantly trying to focus his face but were slipping away immediately. Hadrian had to smother a giggle. It seemed like Bothan understood the futility of it as well, so he sat back to his chair. "How can Elite Exchange help you, ...?"

Hadrian ignored the question at the end. "I've come to the ownership of an amount of gold, and need to sell it. From what I've learned, yours was the only exchange that dealt in such... quantities."

An excited gleam appeared in trader's eyes, and he subtly leaned the table. "How much are we talking about?"

"100 tons," Hadrian answered bluntly.

The gleam increased in Bothan's eyes. Hadrian had a feeling that he was going to scam him. A passive application of legilimency proved it.

Before it could be any problem, Hadrian sent a compulsion to make him completely truthful. The trader made some calculations before answering in a monotone voice. "It will be 2.46 billion credits on the current value of the gold. It is not enough to flood the market, but your infusion is going to lower the value."

After completing the deal, Hadrian left the Exchange.

While walking aimlessly to wait for the transaction of gold, a restaurant-cum-bar caught his eye.

In a flight of fancy, he decided to enter and eat something new.

It was a small restaurant that seemed to cater to the locals more than the tourist. The food in front of the customers had a nice presentation, and the smell coming from inside was appetizing.

There were no heavy drinkers on sight. Alcohol was looking like more of an accompanying drink. Customers were more into eating rather than drinking.

He sat down at an empty table and ordered something that looked vaguely familiar and some... tea?

Seeing tea on the menu was quite a shock to him. During his search on the holonet, he didn't see any references to it. He hoped it was something nice.

His order came very quickly.

To his surprise, the taste of tea was familiar and not bad at all. While not the best he drank, as a casual drink it would do. Knowing his stocks wasn't the last of his tea was a relief.

While he was eating ad slowly sipping from his steaming cup, his tablet lit up with a notification. Hadrian hummed softly while taking a look before putting it back on the table.

"Anything interesting?" A voice asked curiously.

A woman that looked to be around her late 20s was sitting across him with an intrigued look on her face. Her face seemed to look quite ageless - not showing her real age. Her clothes showed her figure quite a bit - Hadrian's eyes couldn't help but linger in her bared cleavage.

"No, nothing interesting. Just a transaction report." He replied blandly and turned his attention back to his food. He had no wish to talk with a random stranger.

"I noticed what you ordered as a drink. I thought I was the only one that drank it." The woman ignored the subtle leave-me-alone in his words and continued on. "Everyone seems to want some alcohol in their drinks, sadly." Her face was a look of sadness.

It was obvious she felt very passionate about the subject.

Hadrian raised an eyebrow. He loved his tea, too. He wanted his alcohol with a dash of tea for some time until he found a bar that made cocktails with tea.

"Do you not like alcohol?" He asked softly.

The woman shakes her head. No, not that. "It's just, tea makes everything great, you know? I tried my alcohol with some tea, but sadly I had no success..."

She was radiating sadness as her words trailed. Hadrian decided to give her a hand, he was not expecting to meet at least an honorary Brit on the galaxy. "Have you tried adding fruits to sweeten the cocktail?"

Their talk continued on light topics like the new buildings in Coruscant, the state of the galaxy and best travel locations. Hadrian was surprised how much he was enjoying a random talk like this, and a quick peek to her face showed his companion was the same. All good things must end, however, as a call came to her from her earpiece. She made an apologetic face. "Sorry, I need to take this."

Hadrian tuned her conversation out. The purchase of raw materials went much better than he expected - a bulk order worked surprisingly well. The trader was happy to sell him cheap if when he promised that he would be coming back to buy more.

Black Corporation, his new company that bought the raw materials, was very rich with only a single non-droid employee. Him. His idea was to sell droids - the technology he had was at a much higher level than the Galactic Republic. The disappearance of the Infinite Empire, which he still found no records on the holonet, seemed to affect the Republic much worse than he thought.

His droids would be much better than his rival counterparts - much cheaper too. His only expenditure was the materials and transportation, no building costs were involved. He just needed to input Force to the Forge.

He finished his food and decided to leave. He needed to eat back to Tython to start his remaining plans - now that he had a connection to the holonet it was not necessary for him to stay on the Coruscant anymore. This first trip was not for tourism - and Coruscant was not a good place for a vacation anyway. He was soon planning to visit Naboo anyway.

Before he could leave, his companion at the table made a motion to stop him. Rapidly talking into her earpiece she finished her conversation and stood up. "Are you leaving?" She asked.

"Well, I need to get going if I want to be back home today," Hadrian chuckled and checked his clock. They were talking for a few hours. "Tomorrow morning, it seems."

"Are you going to the public docks? I have business there."

"Yes, my ship is parked there. We can go together if you wish?" Hadrian inquired. He liked her from their small talk. It was quite refreshing to have a normal conversation with someone that had no interest in his secrets.

She smiled and nodded. "I've never gotten your name - I'm Alyssa, by the way."

Hadrian regarded her questioningly. She seemed to be nervous as if she expected him to something to change now that he knew her name. Hadrian ignored it and gave her a smile. "You can call me Black."

She sighed in relief and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Black? Are you trying to be mysterious here?" Although her tone was quite serious, he could see the laughter in her eyes.

"No, no. It really is my name - it comes from my godfather actually." He rolled his eyes.

They continued towards the docks and his parking area - Hadrian could see a group of CorSec officers around his ship inspecting it carefully. He quickly walked towards there. "What is going on here?" He asked frostily.

"Indeed," repeated Alyssa after him, "why have you called me here?"

Hadrian looked at her in surprise. He noticed how the officers turned respectful once they noticed her. He hadn't expected her to be someone high ranked. She didn't hold herself like royalty, and neither did she move like a soldier.

The officer fidgeted as he alternated looks between him and her wondering what their relationship was before answering. "Master Alyssa, patrol noticed this ship carrying heavy weapon systems - they decided to call us in as a precaution."

Hadrian was surprised at the mention Jedi Master and not a little suspicious of her too. Was it just a coincidence a Jedi Master found him not long after he reached Coruscant or did they notice something about him? He shook himself off before focusing on the moment. It wouldn't do to suspect without reason.

"And..." Alyssa drawled.

"And, well, we found out that those weapon systems were not found on a ship this size - you see - the main weapon is an energy beam that is usually put on capital ships, not a freighter like (if you can call it that) this." The officer rambled on. He seemed quite nervous as he was constantly rubbing the back of his neck and fidgeting.

Alyssa looked surprised at the mention of heavy weapons but didn't let it stop her. "So? The Republic does not ask questions about privately owned craft, no matter the weapons."

The officer seemed to wish to be anywhere but here answering questions. "You know, Master Jedi, the raids on the Republic are increasing - we thought..." The officers continued on rambling. Hadrian decided to take a peek on his mind - the officer was acting very suspicious in his opinion.

A quick look revealed officer getting a bribe from someone called Barthe - a crime lord from the Undercity. "Why did Barthe ask you to compound my ship?" He accused while continuing his probe.

"Wh-what?! I don't know Barthe! What are you talking about?!" The officer sputtered.

"Oh? He wants my ship... and ME?" Hadrian continued on ignoring the officer. "Why?" He mused to himself.

Alyssa looked taken aback at what she heard and whipped her head to the officer. "Is that true?" She asked dangerously.

"Wh-what? No. I don't know what he is talking about!" He rejected as his voice turned high-pitched.

Alyssa seemed to come to the same conclusion he arrived. Her glare turned hard as she apprehended the officer, she turned to him full businesslike. "Mr Black, I do apologize for the inconvenience - I will be personally investigating the matter."

It's alright, Hadrian gave her a slight smile. "Corrupt officers do exist everywhere." Her shoulders sagged at his words and she offered a somewhat ashamed smile.

"Well, it seems like my business in Coruscant hasn't ended yet," Hadrian spoke in a jolly tone.

"Is that so? Can I ask what are you going to do now?" She questioned him with a suspicious look. Hadrian's grin grew larger and his eyes turned cold. "I have a meeting with one Barthe at Undercity level 301."

She threw him a smile then she nodded worriedly. "Undercity is quite dangerous and Barthe has quite a terrible reputation... Are you sure you want to confront him?"

"Yes, I need to know why he decided to target me." He answered.

"I see..." She looked pensive. "Can I join you? A Jedi would be an excellent deterrent in there."

"It's a date then," Hadrian threw her a smirk. She giggled. "Alright."

As they went down the levels with Alyssa's ship, the environment slowly went from bad, to worse. The lack of sunlight made everything gloomy, with the poor and the criminal nature of the locals added in the level 301 was an absolute dump in Hadrian's opinion.

Thankfully they did not need to spend much time in the level - Barthe's office was just in front of the entrance.

As they exited the ship, people looked at them suspiciously - everyone seemed to be on a hair trigger. "I knew this place was bad but this..." Alyssa gestured with her hands. "This is terrible. How can they live here?"

Hadrian shrugged. "If you're poor and have nothing else to go... It is not the worst place." Alyssa looked at him oddly before continuing her inspection of the level.

Before they could enter the Barthe's office, a grunt neared them and gestured them to follow him - after giving Alyssa a look, Hadrian stepped up to follow.

Soon they arrived in front of a skinny looking someone with a blaster at his side. He was polishing a rifle before he noticed them - and eyes Hadrian piercingly. "I was expecting you." He greeted them cordially after throwing a look at Alyssa.

They sat in silence for some time - the man was stared at Hadrian for some time before he abruptly spoke. "I cannot seem to focus on your face... How interesting."

Hadrian glared at him dangerously. "Are you Barthe?" He asked curtly. "I am indeed," Barthe answered. "I know why you're looking for me."

"Of course you do." Hadrian tolled his eyes. Barthe chuckled. "You're funny, boy, but I respect you at least. Not many dares to come here and challenge me, even with a Jedi at their side." He motioned one of the grunts to gave him the bag that was sitting to the side. He took it and pushed it in front of Hadrian. "30.000 credits. More than enough for your ship. Take it and leave it, or don't leave at all."

Hadrian looked at Barthe blankly for nearly a minute.

Then, he started laughing. He couldn't help it after he did away with Voldemort he never expected to be threatened by a grunt. It was hilarious.

Then, he stopped laughing abruptly. After casting a petrification spell on everyone except Alyssa, he dove into the mind of the criminal. It didn't take long to find out why he targeted him - the dealer at the exchange rat him out as a rich target. No nefarious reason, nothing to indicate anything deeper, it was just a simple robbery.

Hadrian sighed. At least it was a simple case. After casting a simple obliviation on every criminal, he turned to leave. Before he took a step, however, he remembered the Jedi he came with.

He turned to look at her - the knowing smirk was an answer enough. "You used Force." She stated.

"Ah." A long interrogation seemed to be in his future.


	4. Chapter 4 - It's magic!

"No, it's magic." Hadrian insisted.

"Sure, sure," Alyssa smiled at him somewhat condescendingly. "Its proper name and the name we call it is the Force."

Right now, they were at a cafe they came after they left the Undercity. As the Jedi order proclaimed somewhat of exclusivity of _the Force,_ they sit to talk about what he did down in the Undercity.

When he answered what he did was magic, not Force, he was promptly informed that only those that did not know better used such a... backwater word.

If Hadrian didn't know about the arrogance of the Jedi, he definitely knew now.

"I think you need some magic in your life," Hadrian waggled his eyebrows at her in an attempt to defuse the atmosphere. "You'll see whether its called Magic or Force when you become one with it," he muttered under his breath. Whatever that meant exactly.

"_They do become one with the Magic, actually_," Morri piped into his thoughts. "_Although not in the same way they expect. Whenever a magical die, their personal magic generated and held by their soul becomes part of the Magic - and their souls cross to their afterlife_."

_Does Heca correct them of their mistake, then?_

"_Oh yes_," Heca cackled, "_I teach them their wrongs ve~ry carefully_."

Hadrian was disturbed by the images that filled his mind after that declaration. He decided then and there he wouldn't be angering her in the future. He would never refer the Magic as Force, even under the threat of torture.

Alyssa winked at his words. "Are you volunteering, perhaps?" She took a sip of her drink while she pondered what to exactly tell him. "The usage of Force is not exactly prohibited - there are some sensitives that were unfortunately not found out by the Order that teach themselves some tricks." She tapped the table and waited.

"But...?" Hadrian prompted.

"But, and this is very important, you will be monitored by the Order - this is not because of our want of exclusivity on the usage of Force. It is because we are the only ones in the galaxy that is known to use it. If and when a Force user does something, regardless of their affiliation with the Jedi Order the locals immediately think of us. You do understand why the monitoring is important, right?" She watches his expression with bated breath.

Hadrian looked back at her impassively. At least on the outside. Inside, he was cursing a storm - he did not expect to make such an amateur mistake. The knowledge he gleaned made it seem like there were nothing similar to Statue of Secrecy here, and he thought people wouldn't bat an eye on his use of magic. Waking up alone on a world that could only be inhabited by magicals did not help either, now that he thought about it.

Spending the year alone did not help either. He should've known spending a long time in a peaceful environment would make him get used to it.

"Did you already know I could use magic? You were not surprised when I stopped the grunts with it down there." Hadrian changed the topic to not make any rash decisions. From the knowing look on her face, she understood what he was trying to do.

"I wasn't exactly expecting you to use it there, but I did sense you beforehand. Although it's muted, you're like a bright star in the Force, you know." She focused on his face for a bit. "The face trick you did to hide it was quite interesting, too." She said offhandedly.

Hadrian froze.

This-I-How?!

He couldn't believe he was careless enough to let his aura free on a freaking city! Anyone could've felt it! His only saving grace was his Occlumency that muted it somewhat. The same Occlumency that was making sure he didn't twitch.

He didn't dare pull his aura back now - it would've been too suspicious, to say the least. He was pretty confident that would attract much more attention than he had on him now.

She noticed the Notice-Me-Not on his face too - but that was a given. He didn't expect it to hold against a magical.

He stopped to think about it.

Perhaps this was not as much of a disaster as it appeared to be. Sure, he now had the eyes of Jedi Order, but much of his time would be spent on Tython - a world they clearly didn't know about.

No, that was wishful thinking. He didn't know whether they knew about the Tython, but he knew it was not occupied now and there were no signs of civilizations that was on the world in recent history. Luna was scouring the planet looking for other clues, to see whether there were any other buildings. After all, nine temples couldn't be all it was.

He shook his head. _Focus Hadrian, focus._

The attention of the Jedi Order was a double sided sword - it could help or hinder him. Having the political protection of such an Order would make his days go much smoother. On the other hand, he now needed to be careful of what Order would think. He first needed information about the Order's policies.

"What kind of acts are you talking about?" The abrupt return to the topic made Alyssa's state at him unfocused for a bit, but she returned quickly. "The usual. No slavery, no extortion and similar acts. Generally, don't be evil." She said with a shrug. "It is not something clearcut. We do not expect you to suddenly live by the Jedi Code after all."

"However," her eyes turned sharp. "If you do find any holocrons or records of Jedi, you will be expected to hand them over. It was a unanimous decision in the past that non-members are not allowed to learn. They are very dangerous to use without a grounding in the Code."

_Strike one against me then,_ Hadrian thought. There was no chance that he was handing Tython or anything he found there.

Still, with the exception of the last part, it was not terrible - in fact, the reputation of the Order would be a big help to him. Of course, he would much rather there were no eyes on him, but he would take what he could.

Still, this at least meant no magically enhanced droids for near future - he would have to be content with normal droids.

"I understand," he tipped his head in her direction and stood up. "If there is nothing else...?"

"It's alright, you can leave. I held you enough anyway." She shook his outstretched hand. "The High Council or the Council of Coruscant may also want to talk to you in the future - you can expect a call from them."

"The High Council?" He asked.

"They are the Council that regulates the local Councils, and also called the Council of Ossum - where our main temple resides. Usually, the local councils preside over subjects like this, but since you're a traveller with no clear home they may send it up to the High Council."

"I understand," I nodded slightly. "Have a nice day."

"Goodbye to you too."

Hadrian was so deep into his thoughts, he didn't notice he reached his ship. He quickly boarded and had Luna take care of the getting the clearance for departure. A few minutes later, they were in space preparing for entering hyperspace.

"Harry," Luna's voice snapped him from his thoughts. "You seem... stressed," She stated gently.

It amused Hadrian. Stressed was one word he would use to describe his emotional state. There were others that were not as kind. He felt like he was close to freaking out - making this many mistakes on his just first trip into the wider galaxy didn't fill him with confidence for his future. Perhaps leaving this fast was a mistake?

"Yes," he muttered. "I don't need to hurry. I can afford to take it slow after all," he smiled somewhat self-deprecatingly.

Taking a deep breath, he sat down to meditate. If there was one thing he learned from the Je'daii Order, it was the benefit of meditation. Whenever he felt anxious or plagued by his emotions from his past, he meditates to relax.

Soon, he was deep into the relaxing embrace of Magic. The Magic always felt like a loving hug to him. It was exhilarating - he could easily imagine why magicals held non-magicals in contempt. Having the touch of magic on you somehow... changed your view of the Universe.

What could and couldn't be possible simple became a question of are you willing to pay the price. While non-magicals were shackled by the rules of the Universe, his only limitation was how much effort he wanted to spend.

He soon felt himself find his courage back. The doubts that filled his mind since the meeting with Jedi Master slowly cleared - and for the first time since then, he could say that _everything's going to be alright_.

The computer beeped to indicate that the ship has reached its given destination.

Just as he was about to rise from his meditation, he felt a soft pull towards the south of the Forge. Magic wanted to show him something - for the first time since it showed him the Forge.

Hadrian decided to rest before going to somewhere potentially dangerous and got an approving nudge from Magic.

After a nap at his home, he boarded his ship to follow where Magic led him.

He flew towards the continent the Forge was in, but instead of following the Ridge towards the Forge or going to the north to Temple of Science, he was going south. From his knowledge, there was nothing at the southern tip of the continent except unending plains and a desert.

He passed the plains. There was nothing of interest in them, at least visible to him. As he passed the plains, appropriately named Red Desert became all he could see.

An indentation, a bizarre shape appeared in his vision. He was rapidly nearing it. It got bigger and clearer in time - a pyramid that wouldn't look out of place beside the ones in Egypt was sitting bang in the middle of the desert.

"What is this?" He mused. "Luna, can you tell me how old this building is?"

"Of course, Hadrian. According to my preliminary scans, it is between 150.000 and 100.000 years old. For a more accurate result, I would need a sample and suitable equipment. "

Hadrian let out a whistle. "This thing is ancient!" From what he knew, the Je'daii Order was founded around 27.000 years ago - and left after 10.000 years because after the Force Wars the storms became unbearable to them. _It should've been obvious then that they were doing something wrong if the planet was lashing out,_ he thought.

"Alright Luna, take us down. I will go take a look and bring you your sample," he ordered.

"Understood. Activating landing sequence. Hadrian, I am getting life signals from inside. You should be careful."

"You're telling me that there is someone else on Tython?!" He stared at her screen in shock. "I thought there was no one else here? Heca? What is going on?" He felt his blood chill. While he made his ward very strong, there were still some more he could add - he never expected them to be important as there were no sentients on the world.

A few of the more vicious intent wards perhaps? A _Fidelius_ too, as a way to hide.

"Relax, Hadrian. There are no sentients on the world - the life signs you saw are from the Flesh Raiders. They are just rabid beasts that should be put down. They have enough intelligence to be able to use a few primitive tools, but that's it," Heca soothed his worries. He felt her aura embrace him as he relaxed. "Now go on, go see what is inside. It should be a nice puzzle for you at least."

Taking the cue from her words, he exited the ship and started walking around the sand coloured pyramid. It was nearly 200 meters tall, with blocks of stone raised at its sides. From what he could see, it was absolutely uniform with the exception of the entrance at the front, just somewhat buried in the sand. His ship cleared some of the sand in its descent. The bared surface of the pyramid showed no erosion. It was smooth as a finely cut glass.

Hadrian cast the translation charm on himself and entered the pyramid. The entrance opened to a dark tunnel that was going deeper and downwards into the pyramid. The walls of the tunnel were filled with writings that talked about the newly constructed Gate and how excited the authors to finally have a connection to the Sacred World.

He stopped before it became too dark inside and applied lighting charms all around the tunnel. The writings ended with a talk about returning home to hide from... Gods?

That couldn't be right. Although he had no real evidence, he was quite sure that Heca, Morri or any others wouldn't do anything to cause someone to hide from them. He wasn't sure if they were even able to do such a thing. So... it was something else.

The writer seemed to believe that they were Gods and their Gates got the Gods' attention.

He learned the name of the people who built this place - the Gree. Not a name he heard before, though if they were this old they may have already gone extinct.

Before he could read more, he started hearing some footsteps in the distance. He first decided to scout ahead and cast heat-hiding charm, silencing charm, odour-vanishing charm and night-vision charm - the basic four charms for scouting.

The disillusionment was handled by simply activating the third Hallow - the Invisibility Cloak, said to have the ability to hide its owner from even Death. He simply disappeared.

Hadrian countered the light charm.

He crept towards where the footsteps were coming from and saw the Flesh Raiders for the first time.

They were tall, nearly a head above him, with a bluish skin with a humanoid body structure. Their eyes were not in their skulls, instead, they were on the side of their head as an indentation, connected with a small bone structure from what he could tell.

Their clothes, or the lack of, were either from leather or leaves. Their weapons were nothing complicated too, just simple makeshift spears and daggers.

There were six of them he could see - a detection spell gave him another two behind the turn. They didn't seem to notice his existence, as they were simply walking around without any alertness.

Hadrian carefully took Gryffindor's Sword out - it wouldn't do to have nothing in his hand. With the lack of a wand, he could throw spells and use his sword at the same time.

He first threw an overpowered _Reducto_ to the middle and jumped back. The red light hit the first Flesh Raider and it exploded in a shower of gore. Without giving the others any chance of respite and time to recover from their shock, he continued his barrage. Following cutting charms rid two of them from their heads.

To his surprise, they pulled themselves with surprising speed and quickly started searching for him. Thankfully, his charms were still in place.

He sent another _Reducto_ together with a _Bombarda_ to the ground and apparated from his position to the back of them. Another one of them fell to the reductor curse, but the _Bombarda_ didn't do anything.

"Shit," he muttered. "The ground was made from a very strong material."

As a result of this, his new position was made aware of to Flesh Raiders - the crack of the apparition was like a beacon without the cover given by exploding ground.

He threw another reductor to the remaining two, but they simply dodged it and one of them started rushing towards his position. Their speed was much faster than what he was accustomed to - his normal enemies didn't move this fast.

The Raider reached him in few quick moments and swept its spear in a move to hit anywhere he could possibly be - he was still invisible to them.

Hadrian apparated to where the first corpses were and threw a _Lumos Maxima_, immediately followed by a _Sectumsempra_.

Not wanting to see whether it hit, he apparated back.

The dark cutting curse hit the Raider at its chest. It was bleeding profusely and was not in a shape to moving anymore. "Aaargh!" It started screaming and convulsing in pain.

Ignoring the clearly incapacitated one, he apparated to the back of the other Raider, immediately followed by another apparition to its front. It was a very smart move too, as the Flesh Raider hit its back the moment it heard the crack of the apparition. While it was turning, Hadrian slashed with his sword and left a cut in its chest.

He apparated back to see it falling to the basilisk venom. The injured one was on the ground struggling to get up. A _Diffindo_ ended its misery.

The fight was somewhat therapeutic to him - it allowed him to get back into fighting mode.

He smiled at the results and vanished their remains as he continued inside.

At the end of the tunnel was a circular room with a dome that was lit up - it was clear to see this was where Raiders made their nest.

The room was mostly empty save for the arc in the middle, together with a console it was connected to. Hadrian slowly made his towards the arc after making sure there wasn't anything around with a detection spell - it wouldn't do to get caught in an ambush.

He slowly touched the arc. It was a smooth surface with no apparent electronics outside. There was nothing to indicate it was anything more than a decoration except the console it was attached to - a cube with a size of a hyperdrive engine.

The console was clearly not complete - there were open sections filled with cables and all sorts of stuff he had no idea about. Instead of touching and breaking something, he activated the console at the front and started reading.

After an hour later, he knew it was going to be a hard endeavour to repair the gate and he got working. There were many very rare and/or restricted material needed in the blueprints, together with something called durasteel that he had no idea about.

He briefly entertained the idea of casting a _reparo_, but let it go due to the risk. He still wasn't too clear on how these people incorporated magic into the technology.

With nothing else to do, he copied the required materials and apparated back to his ship. He had some research to do about this durasteel and Gree.


	5. Chapter 5 - Yer a Jedi, Harry

"Ugh, I hate this," Hadrian complained for the umpteenth time. He was currently wearing one of the new dresses that he bought because 'it represented his new status.'

The last five years were very productive for him - he spent every waking moment studying anything and everything about magic, learning as much as he could. While admittedly, five years were not very long, a constant determination along with an impossible level talent on magic made it viable to reach a respectable height in at least three of the subjects he focused on. Transfiguration, Charms and the Arts.

Transfiguration and Charms were always useful to know, on top of being the cornerstone of nearly everything.

The Arts or the Ministry named Dark Arts were the destructive part of the magic. Just like everything Ministry did, however, it was a wrongly named subject. While some parts of the Arts were really dark and required appropriate emotions, it was not wholly dark. Even some of the Hogwarts taught spells like _Stupefy_ or _Reducto_ was part of it.

On top of his studies, he warded his house on Tython from hell to back - everything from the darkest protective wards to _Fidelius_ was part of its ward scheme.

On the other side of his life, his company was his masterpiece.

Black Corporations were now a regular part of daily life for nearly everyone - he sold cheap and they were easy to access and use. Every person or household that had more than the minimum amount of income owned one of his droids.

A cook? No problem! Do you need a butler? Sure! Something that could calculate hyperlanes and massage your foot? Just buy one of the compatible modules and you're good to go!

Black Corporations had a droid for nearly every occasion - and the modular sale method was a huge success that even he didn't expect.

After the first three years, his competitors were slowly disappearing - when it hit five, only the biggest ones were still on the market and they were only going because of other avenues of profit.

Hadrian was actually surprised how hungry the market was for his tech. Almost everyone appreciated even the very much downgraded versions - his competitors notwithstanding. The droid market was already in his grasp, and now the same grasp was slowly extending towards the console market.

There was only a single downside. Now that his company was so rich and powerful, he was expected to put up an appearance at high society events.

As his constant complaining proved, he was not very keen on it.

"I hadn't escaped the bloody Earth just to get invited to do the same shit!" He complained to no one in particular. The face in the screen in front of him, his personal AI, Luna, just raised her eyebrow. "Hadrian, this was your plan. It is going to be coming to an end soon for you anyway. Just grit your teeth and bear with it." She droned as she repeated from memory.

"Still..." Hadrian pouted.

The event was at the Coruscant - a world that surprised Hadrian with its hypocrisy. The capital of the Galactic Republic was divided into two - the surface levels and the Undercity. It was a line that divided the rich from the poor. Considering that the Senate was on this world, it was ironic to see the poor swept under where they couldn't be seen, as the same senators argued against having it done to their own sectors.

Still, _needs must,_ Hadrian thought.

He stood up with a heave and got ready to face the music.

The party hall was a beautifully decorated piece of architecture that stood strong since millennia. It was not extravagant in its luxury but the most expensive hall of the capital still shone with copious amounts of precious stones.

The hall was already filled when he entered. The senators having finished their day was already mingling with the guests - the rich owners of companies, military contractors, mercenary leaders... a massive amount of variety. Their power was the only similarity between everyone here.

When he first attended one of these events, he was baffled to see senators currying favours from him - until he learned the state of the Senate. The Senate neared the level of corruption in Wizarding Britain, and that was saying something. With the lack of purebloods to concentrate the power, the rich became new lawmakers.

Some senators rejected bribes at first, sure, but rich simply went to someone else. Usually the same senator's rival - just to spite them. Soon enough, everyone became corrupt.

He was here to get permission for Black Corporations' new agreement - in fact, a huge part of the reason he built his company was to get this.

"So, Mr Black, any new shocks like your entry into the console market?" The Alderaan senator casually inquired.

The senator Tolmar was a nice piece of work. When he designated Alderaan as the main world to sell his droids, he created a lot of jobs as well as an ever-increasing amount of traffic for the world. For that reason, the previous senator, as well as the current one, was very friendly - he managed to get a large part of the trade agreement between Black Corporations and the Galactic Republic done by them.

The most important part of the current agreement was the designation that his factories(not that he had any) and any other property he had or would in the future was considered off limits to everybody.

Now was the time to add another part to the agreement.

"I was considering exploring a few uncharted systems, but with the current legislation that they would be the part of the Republic..." he said offhandedly. The senator's eye immediately gleamed with greed as he understood what exactly he wanted.

"Perhaps we can manage to get a few exclusion to that law. It is quite silly anyway, it just discourages explorers from going to the uncharted territory."

Hadrian hummed in agreement. It wouldn't do to show them his interest in it. "Perhaps if I could designate a few worlds as factory worlds for my company? If so, it would increase the output as well..." he trailed off as he looked the senator with expectation.

"But it would be hard to get it by the Senate, others wouldn't like it-"

Hadrian cut off his hesitation. "If the production of my droids will rise, perhaps we can afford to pay a higher amount of tax than we do now - a single per cent of increase perhaps? Of course, an even higher percentage for Alderaan since it was with your help that we managed it in the first place. Hypothetically speaking, of course."

"Hypothetically speaking, how much of an increase Alderaan would get?" Senator Talmor asked him with a tone that he was forcing himself not to rub his hands together.

"Another per cent, perhaps? Why, is Alderaan interested?"

So continued the night. He went around talking to the senators, offering them all sorts of promises but he found enough votes to get it to pass.

The next day it was already a part of the agreement - every century the Black Corporations will be able to claim a single system that was not part of any star or hyperlane maps that was provided by the Republic that would triumph any contesting claims in the future. A few hours later, the system Tython belonged became his private property - in other words, a place no Republican agent can enter.

He basically cut the Jedi Order from their roots. It was a bit sad, but since Jedi didn't even remember Tython it was their fault that he could claim it. They should've recorded where it was even if the entry to the world was impossible for nearly everyone.

This was the result of his newfound paranoia. The mistakes he did during his outing woke him up - he started covering every piece of his trail and did it meticulously. He deleted every record of Tython from holonet and every piece of classified server he managed to get into.

Except, you guessed it, from Jedi Order. He couldn't believe how little information anyone not part of the Order had access to. Even the Republic, which Jedi claimed to be a part of, had little to nothing on them. Even the founding Code was not known - he was honestly surprised how the Order managed to Control the information.

Which made having their eye on him even more terrifying.

While he was claiming the Tython system he renamed it as Hecate - to hide it from any possible Jedi record as well as a tribute to Magic.

It was the penultimate stage of his plan. Now, it was time for the finale. He was going to take the eye of Jedi Order from him, permanently.

He took a final look at his ship - not Black Nomad, just a copy. "Luna, start the operation."

"Acknowledged."

His ship entered hyperspace to reach Coruscant but never did.

That day, Mr Black, owner of the largest droid company in the galaxy died of a pirate attack.

Next day, Hadrian Black, aged three, heir of the Black Corporations arrived at the hands of Jedi Master Alyssa.

* * *

Joining the Order was much easier than he thought. The rarity of magicals made every one of them that was found or handed to the Order to be accepted without any fuss. When he first arrived after asking Heca and Morri to transform him back to three years old, Alyssa took off for the Temple immediately, and as soon as she reached there she handed him to the Fosterers.

"Fosterer Jane, please check him. A Force-sensitive was handed over to me by someone I knew. I need you to take care of him while I contact the Council about his status," she said as she placed the toddler to hands of the twenty-something years brunette Fosterer.

The Council was not in a meeting. With the exception of the Grandmaster and two other Jedi Masters, the halls of the Council was empty.

"Master Alyssa? What brings you here?" Asked the yellow-skinned Zabrak.

"Grandmaster Taros, a force-sensitive was delivered to me today," answered Alyssa. "However... there are some complications I need help addressing," She grimaced.

"Is he too old?" The Zabrak looked interested. "You wouldn't have come to us if it was something simple... you have the authority to decide on the subject."

"I do, yes," Alyssa nodded. "The problem isn't something of a problem per se, but it touches something very much discouraged by the Order." She took a deep breath to continue.

"He is -," before she could finish her words, the door to the Council chambers flew open with a frantic and excited Fosterer barging in. "Master Alyssa, the one you brought us... he is amazing! Do you know his heritage or where he came from? Is he from one of the ancient families? How powerful were his parents in the Force?" She asked away excitedly.

Master Manda, a Cathar Master that was quite skilled in Force interrupted her with a cough. "Fosterer Jane, has something happened?" He looked at her pointedly.

"Ah...," noticing where exactly she was, Fosterer Jane rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "Greetings, Grandmaster Taros, Master Manda, Master Mun." She took a deep breath, visibly gathering her courage." I have come to inform you about the toddler Master Alyssa left us with. When I saw her, I forgot my decorum in the face of my curiosity. Do forgive me," she bowed her head in shame.

"Don't worry about it, you're still young and impulsive." Grandmaster Taros waved her apologies off with a smile. "Continue telling us about this matter," he urged her.

"You actually need to see it, Grandmaster. His connection to the Force... it is amazing. Can you follow me to the nursery? Fosterer Marek was asking for you. She actually was quite anxious for you to get there."

The Zabrak looked intrigued. It would take a lot hard for the old Devaronian to get flustered. She was taking care of Younglings for nearly a century now, every child that came to the Temple of Ossus was placed by her to one of the Clans.

The group of five walked to the Nursery calmly, the young Initiates and Padawans in their training stopping to pay them their respects.

When they reached the nursery, a baby with a pale complexion was sitting on a table and was being fed by one of Fosterer Marek. She noticed their entrance soon and quickly addressed the group. "Grandmaster, Masters, thank you for coming quickly," she nodded them in greeting. "He is the one I felt the need to inform you for. Please do check him without any input from me first," she gestured the toddler she was feeding some sort of paste in front of her.

The Grandmaster squinted his eyes as he assessed the boy. He was a calm looking child with a pale complexity. He was perhaps a bit higher than the average, but it wasn't anything special. He didn't look conspicuous in the first glance.

To his senses, it was a different story. He had honed his senses during the last century, and he was honestly quite proud of the level of sensitivity he reached. He knew his connection with the Force was higher than the most even during his Initiate days but this boy... this boy was special. He could feel the Force flowing through the toddler, moving around with his every movement, rising and falling with every breath he took. His whole being was filled with Force, and if someone told him at that moment the child was born from the Force and Force alone, he would be inclined to believe it.

Except for his eyes. Those impossibly green and shining eyes held a very different connection. He could feel the sensation of Death coming from those innocent eyes - but not the Death he was familiar with. No, it was the aura of _Death_, the inevitable end that came to everyone.

"This... this is impossible," Master Manda exclaimed in shock. "He is, he is..." he couldn't seem to find the words to explain what he felt about him. Grandmaster Taros knew that his old friend's senses were as good as his. His friend felt the special nature of the child as he himself did.

"He is touched by Force and Death," Grandmaster supplied. Master Manda simply nodded in faint disbelief. "He will need to be carefully taught. We cannot let him go without education. He could be a sign from Force itself."

He addressed to Master Alyssa. "What was the complication you were talking about?" She seemed to be as shocked as Master Mun, the surprise still visible on her face. It took her a few moments to process the question and shook herself off from her stupor. "He is the Heir to the newly rising Black Corporations. The message that accompanied him told me that it would be managed by someone else until he reached the age of sixteen."

"While the private ownership is heavily disfavored, it is not actually banned," muttered Master Mun. "It wouldn't be a problem until he reaches sixteen. It can be decided in between with his input as well."

"There is also the problem of Clans as well. He would destroy any semblance of balance, no matter where he was put," added Fosterer Marek as she joined the conversation. If he is as

"You're right," Grandmaster Taros nodded absentmindedly, his expression heavy in though. For nearly a minute he stood silent. "I have decided," he announced.

"What is it?" Asked Master Manda.

"He shall be accepted as a Youngling, but he will be taught by the Masters that is either most proficient in the subject, or he gets along with most until he is ready for the Trials," he informed the Masters. "Him joining any of the Clans would only slow him down. Care will be taken to not make him arrogant, but it is important that he is taught at his speed," _not to mention it would be prudent to get him attached to Masters. He can not be allowed to fall into the darkness,_ he finished to himself.

"Master Alyssa, you come with me to explain his origins. We will begin until the whole Council convenes," he turned and left. Master Mun took a breath and gave him a deep look before following the others to leave.

As the Masters left, Hadrian curses inside. He couldn't have suppressed his aura - his secret would've gotten out during either training or one of the missions and then he would've had to answer very uncomfortable questions about how a three year old knew enough about aura suppression to fool even Grandmaster of High Council.

So he knew his aura was going to shock people when he first arrived, but to get noticed as being touched by both Magic and Death was not a part of his expectations. There were more to Jedi Order than it meets the eye, he decided. With a nearly 30.000 year old history, they were bound to have some interesting techniques.

At least they were not going to chuck him with one of the child groups. He didn't think he could've acted like a normal child considering he didn't know anything about it. It would've been very annoying, too.

With the one on one education he was going to get at least he could simply act like a mature child. He could learn at his own speed too since it would've been expected for him to excel anyways. Not needing to follow the speed of children was going to be an amazing bonus.

Perhaps being a Jedi wasn't going to be as bad as he thought.


	6. Chapter 6 - Back to school, once more

Following months until he was considered ready for lessons was, in a single word, exhausting. Hadrian needed to keep up his act all the time because of the attention Fosterers were giving him.

He was not considered a part of Clans, so he had no designated Fosterer. As such, every single one of them came to check on him constantly. His cheeks were still hurting from their constant pinching - while talking about how cute and well-behaved he was. The female attention would've been enjoyable if he looked his real age, now it was just irritating. Not to mention the Magic-forsaken gruel they were shovelling down his throat every day.

At least it didn't take long for them to decide he was advanced enough to start the basic education - reading and writing, maths, that sort of stuff.

By the time he hit the age of four, a teacher of Mr Buckard, nosey bastard he was, found him reading an advanced material on the history from the library they gave him access to. Hadrian didn't know about this at the moment, of course, so when his teacher asked him questions on the subject next day he answered like any dutiful student. His excited teacher immediately proclaimed him a prodigy and went on to inform the Council on his progress.

It was why he was now sitting in a somewhat small room with not a huge amount of personal items waiting for his new teacher to come. The attention of the Council was not a bad thing - he wanted to rise in the ranks quickly, so being seen as a genius and special was not a bad thing. It meant he was going to be quite disconnected to his peers in the future, but they were children anyway. He didn't think he could connect with them even if he wanted to.

The door opened and to his surprise, Master Alyssa entered. He must've shown something on his face when she entered. "Have you recognized me?"

Not being able to sink deeply into his Occlumency was biting him in the ass. His mind whirled to find a believable excuse. "I think..." he acted hesitantly. "I remember you as a baby before I came here... were you the one that took me?" He asked somewhat excitedly, praying to Heca that she was going to swallow it up.

"Do you remember when you're that young? I thought you would've forgotten me already," she asked with a smile. "Perhaps I should've been around more, though the missions I was on it would've been quite hard."

She muttered to herself some more before continuing. "Yes, I was the one that took you to the Temple. You were delivered by your father after his passing with a request for you to be able to become a Jedi."

"Did you know my father, Master Alyssa?" Hadrian asked like any children would when hearing about their parents for the first time.

"I did," she nodded. Seeing his curious face she cut him off before he could ask any more questions. "We can talk about it later. Now, I will be teaching you about the Jedi Code, the core of the Jedi Order."

Her face turned serious. "Have you read about the Code before?"

"Yes, Master Alyssa, I did."

"Good. Recite it for me," she told him curtly.

"_Emotion, yet peace._ _Ignorance, yet knowledge._ _Passion, yet serenity._ _Chaos, yet harmony._ _Death, yet the Force,_" he chanted from memory. The Code was one of the few things he already ha access to, and was immensely curious about. He wanted to know what kind of change it had gone through after the Je'daii Order.

To his surprise, it was not a very light focused mantra. In fact, the Code pretty much talked about balance in all things. It confused him immensely. If the Jedi was as similar to Je'daii as he thought, what was the reason for the Force wars on Tython?

"Very good," Master Alyssa nodded approvingly. "The Code is not just a mantra. It is the Core of our lives, the guideline every Jedi follow through. It is hard to understand and even harder to apply to your life, but that is the burden of a Jedi."

^ "We will start with the first sentence of the Code - _Emotion, yet peace._ Like the remaining of the Code, it looks contradictory in the first glance. The word _yet_ in the middle of two opposing words makes all the difference. Jedi can feel emotions, as it is the part of every sentient in the galaxy, but we cannot let those emotions control us. A Jedi is always rational. We are connected to the strongest power in the galaxy, the Force, if we give in to our emotions the destruction we can cause is immense. You must remember this, Hadrian, that you should always use rational thinking and not let your emotions control you."

So the class went on until the night approached. She continued the lesson until the five-part mantra was finished. "Our lesson is complete for today," she said as he stood up to leave. "Tomorrow, you will start learning about the Force. Although the lessons on the Code will continue, you must never forget to apply it to your life."

Hadrian nodded and left. When he reached his room, he plopped down to his bed. Today's lesson enlightened him greatly about the Jedi Order. It _was actually amazing,_ he thought. He was quite anxious to learn more about the Code, as well as start his lessons on the use of magic.

The next day Master Alyssa and Master Mun summoned him to another room, much larger than the one he had lessons yesterday.

The first hour of the lesson was spent on the connection to the Force, as it was called here, until it was time for him to try. "Alright Hadrian, open yourself to the Force. Let it guide you, and try to levitate the cube in front of you."

He knew how levitation spells worked, but whatever they were talking about was not the way he used magic. It was more unstructured, instead of using spells they were more like pushing the magic to do their bidding.

Since he was here to learn, he opted to use the Jedi way of using magic.

Hadrian slowly opened himself to his magic. The intimate embrace of magic filled and warmed his whole being. Like when he asked for direction before, he nudged it into levitating the cube in front of him.

It wobbled for a bit, and he got a response back, saying that magic actually didn't know what to do. He composed himself and sent back an image of what levitation was.

With an enthusiastic heave from Magic, the cube slowly rose to his eye level. It was a different feeling, using his magic like this. He felt quite euphoric. The spells, while really powerful and versatile, didn't do using magic directly justice.

He started floating the cube around the room, doing rolls, dips and climbs with it.

Voice of Master Mun interrupted his fun. "Very well done. Now put the cube back and let us continue," he told him impassively.

* * *

The Council room was filled with every member that had seat on it, as well as few other Masters that was not given one.

"Koros is in a terrible state! Why are we not sending help there?" Asked someone heatedly.

"Master Nadill, you should now that the situation would simply be worse with our inclusion. The ruler's do not look upon us and the Republic kindly at the moment," came the calm response.

It seemed to take the wind from him. "I know, but seeing the poverty of the people..." He looked quite downcast.

"We need to be waiting for someone to make the first move - after their rejection to opening a Temple in the system, it would look like an invasion if we go there now," came the voice of Celegian Master Ooroo from behind the life support system he carried with him.

"Quite right," Master Alyssa nodded.

The Council room became silent as Masters thought about the Koros System.

"How is the training of Initiates going?" Asked Master Nadill after he composed himself. "How does the next generation look like?"

"The Clans are in good shape. The Bear and Katarn Clan are somewhat on a higher level than the others, but the two balance each other. A small amount of rivalry is good for them," Master informed the members of the Council. "They're showing a leaning towards the lightsaber."

The members murmured as they absorbed the information. "Grandmaster Taros, do the other Councils still refuse to use the Clan system?" Came a question from Master Ooroo.

"They are. We shall not be pressuring any Council on the subject. The Ossus Council may be the High Council, but it does not give us the power to order others," warned Grandmaster Taros.

The Initiate Clans were something that was put in use around two hundred years ago by the Temple of Ossus. It was designed to promote loyalty and friendship between Clans as well as some rivalry. From the results, it was highly effective - the number of new Padawans rose quickly, the records of the Initiate Trials became singularly broken by Initiates from Ossus.

"On top of that, there is Hadrian Black," continued Master Alyssa.

The other members of the Council nodded except Master Nadill. He looked confused. "Hadrian Black? Who is he?"

"That's right, you haven't been at the Temple much during the last few years so it is possible you haven't seen him," she nodded at him understandingly. "Hadrian was given to me after his father passed away in a pirate attack. He was three at the time. When he arrived, we have decided that he was not going to be placed in any of the Clans."

"What is so special about him?"

"He... he is amazing. It is a thing of beauty to see him use Force. Before he was given any lessons on its usage, it was decided that we were not going to over compliment him and simply act as if everything he could do was expected. We came very close to broke that decision and not gush over his talent from his very first lesson."

^ "He was dancing the teaching weights only in the amount it took him to focus. He made it look so effortless too." Master Mun answered the question.

Master Alyssa took over to continue. "Similar things happened constantly. We have continued to teach him more and more advanced uses - if he continues on at his speed, he will surpass my - and probably even Grandmaster's level in Force before year pass and he hits ten. We are slowing him down by asking him to find other usages of the Force - and he came to me last week, asking to show something. I wasn't expecting anything too outrageous, but he started flying in the middle of my room - he looked so natural at it too."

"He is equally amazing at the lightsaber combat - he is refining a new Form that he refused to show. He told me to wait for the Tournament."

Master Nadill looked amazed, so did the rest of the room who haven't heard of his ability to fly and new Form, before he processed the last sentence. "The tournament? Is he going to be representing to Ossus?"

"Yes, and not because of his talent too - he won the local selection tournament here with enough of a high score that he is part of the main tournament directly."

"The tournament is in a week..." Master Nadill muttered. "I think I will be staying to watch the tournament, to see how amazing he is."

"If so, you should stay a few more days, he will be entering the Trials, too."

Master Nadill dipped his head in acknowledgement.

* * *

Spending his new childhood at the Jedi Temple was quite a relaxing experience for Hadrian. His routine was divided between learning about Magic, debating philosophy and duelling with swords.

It made him stop and consider just why after spending one year on Tython he jumped head on to Coruscant after just a year. He was repeating nearly the same thing here without getting any problems.

He found out the difference very quickly. The presence of others. Even if he was wary of other people, complete isolation was eating his psyche on Tython. Here at least he could find one of the Masters to have a duel or just talk.

Or find Aristana. She was an unexpected addition - she simply barged into his life.

The other Initiates were quite cold to him - while none of them actually did anything to harm him, they simply ignored his existence or just glared in his general direction. It was simply a case of jealousy. They didn't like his apparent favouring by the Council and pretty much every Master, they didn't like him for not being part of any Clans, they didn't like him getting private lessons, the list went on and on.

When he made no move to make any connections with other Initiates - simply because they were just children, he got labelled as an arrogant child. Even his teachers talked to him about it until he told them he didn't like the others lack of maturity and their childish attitude.

Next day the other Initiates grouped together and forced him to a duel - he simply fell every one that came against him until Masters came and saw what was happening. Seeing always serene Masters furious was disconcerting. He got ordered to his room and no one bothered him anymore.

He still didn't know what happened that night.

After that he became even more of a loner - his only relationships were in the form of Knights and Masters.

Until Aristana came.

The Chiss girl with shining red eyes sit down beside him in the mess hall and simply started talking just about everything. He simply humoured her at first, but she soon turned into a bright spot in his life.

To his eternal shame, he checked her mind more than once to see whether her friendship was genuine. It was. She first simply didn't want him to stay with no friends.

Her friends started pressuring her to drop his friendship with him - not wanting her to lose her friends, he slowly distanced himself from her.

When she cornered him and asked what was going on, he informed her that her friends were important. She, very calmly informed him that he was her friend. If the others didn't like it, that was that.

"What are you brooding about again?" Came her voice from behind.

"Nothing really," he answered without turning.

"Are you worried about the Tournament tomorrow or the following Trials?"

"Nope," he popped the p.

"Right," understanding dawned to her face. "With your new form, you're simply going to trash the opposition. I am jealous that you get to enter this early. Masters still tell me to wait next year!" She whined.

"Meh," he shrugged. "You're still entering the Trials a year earlier and Tournament much more, so don't complain. Just be happy they're letting you enter early and leave it at that. I am just happy they are letting me enter this early."

"No way," she snorted. "If they could, they would've made you a Knight already. You know that designing a new lightsaber form is enough to become a Master as a Battlemaster, right? The founder of Makashi became a Master that way. And that was for simply a normal form. I wonder what they're going to do once they see what you created?"

He shrugged again. He was going to learn about it tomorrow in any case. "Well, I'm off to sleep," he said as he stood up. "Good night to you Aristana."

"Night."

Following day he was awake at dawn just like the usual. While not as obtrusive as the dawns on Tython, it was still enough to wake him up.

When he entered the mess hall, he could see new people around. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of people eating this early and none that knew about him.

Not long after he returned Master Alyssa sent him a message. "Hadrian, the tournament is going to start soon. Change into your robes and go to the duelling platforms."

Following her directions, he entered the duelling platforms. The contestants were already hurrying around to find which one they were going to fight.

He found his soon enough, he was the first to go on to stage against someone called Stargo. The announcement to take the stage followed right afterwards.

He calmly walked up to the steps. When the audience noticed him as a contestant, the radiating disbelief was hilarious.

He scanned the crowd to find Aristana. She was sitting with her clan, the Dragon Clan, sitting at the edge. From the way her shoulders were shaking, she had the same amusement he felt.

His opponent jumped onto the stage and stared at him. "Are you simply small for your age?" He asked.

"No, I am nine."

Stargo looked much tenser once he heard Hadrian's response. Hadrian simply bowed slightly as a greeting for the duel.

Grandmaster Taros' voice echoed around and silenced everyone. "The Apprentice Tournament will begin with the first match on my sign. Contestants, don't forget, the tournament is for you to show your skills, not just win. The rules are simple, three hits, stepping out of the circle or falling unconscious means a loss." He looked at Hadrian and his opponent. "If you're both ready?" They both nodded. "Very well, begin."

His opponent took out a single training lightsaber and fell into the stance of Makashi, the second form. It was a form that was designed for lightsaber duels. From his opponent's stance, he looked quite accomplished in it too.

Hadrian smirked. He knew it wasn't fair to the fifteen-year-old boy in front of him. Without him, his opponent would probably climb quite high.

Hadrian took his two lightsabers and simply let them drop before jumping back. His opponent looked at him in confusion for half a second before noticing the problem. The dropped lightsabers were not falling onto the ground - they were floating with their blade active.

Stargo looked amazed for a second before his eyes hardened. He fell into a defensive stance.

Seeing his opponent had no intention of attacking, Hadrian threw his lightsaber forward and jumped towards Stargo right behind.

Hadrian's first saber arrived in a downwards slash and Stargo raised his own to block while mindful of the other one. After dodging the second saber's horizontal slash, he jumped to his right - onto the coming slash from the first saber.

Blocking it desperately, he rolled back to dodge the following slashed but the speed of levitating lightsabers was much higher than a human's body, and the lightsabers were already slashing when he stood up in a hurry.

Stargo continued to dodge and block with no ability to retaliate until he noticed an opening to the left. Taking the respite, he jumped with all of his strength to escape the unrelenting assault of floating lightsabers - to right in front of a waiting Hadrian.

From a point-blank distance, Hadrian sent a strong Force blast. With Stargo's balance lost from the last ditch jump he performed, he had no ability to resist. The force of the push hit him, and Stargo rocketed out of the platform.

Hadrian bowed slightly, turned on his heel and went down.

The announcement for his win came nearly half a minute later.


	7. Chapter 7 - Battlemaster!

The tournament went on as planned following a brief break.

Hadrian sat in a seat made very comfortable with cushioning charms. If he was going to wait his turn for hours, he wasn't going to do it without at least sitting in comfort. The scent of sweat and fatigue coming from winners waiting for their matches were trying to get past the air freshening charm around his head.

The Council were going to interrogate him quite extensively, especially after what he planned for the Trials. Name of Black was slowly turning into something of a legend around the Temple. After the public Tournament and Trials, it was going to be known around every Jedi Temple that was on the audience.

The other contestants may have been very talented in their own ways, but none of them was going to put even a scratch on him. Simply the lack of physical exertion assured that. If he wanted to make his battles boring, he could simply stand away while his lightsabers attacked.

"Final match, Hadrian Black vs Taliara Sali."

The sound of the announcement echoed around the platform, and he fluidly stood up, finally relieved of his boredom of waiting. So much was his boredom, he didn't even notice he reached the finals. Perhaps, his final match was going to relieve some of his boredom.

"Sali." He nodded curtly.

"Black."

"Are you ready?" The lion-like Cathar asked his attention firmly on Hadrian. "Follow the rules. Don't forget that this is a spar between Initiates, not a battle to the death against a Dark Jedi."

The purple robed Togruta gave a hesitant nod, her eyes full of anxiety with a trace amount of excitement colouring it. "I am ready." The old Jedi turned to the boy clad in blue and green.

Hadrian nodded before he could ask the question. Eyes of the humanoid lion trailed on Hadrian for some time. "Very well. You can begin."

Taliara jumped back quickly to put distance between her opponent and herself. _No need to win._ She thought, her fingers gripping the lightsaber firmly. _Only need to show my skills to Masters and that's enough._

The first battle between Black and Stargo was a terrible awakening for every contestant. Unlike most of the audience, the contestants were warned by their Master to watch out for a nine-year-old boy participating in a tournament for those twice his age. Even while giving them warnings, there was a trace of disbelief in the tone of her Master like she couldn't believe it either.

It was no excuse for being sloppy. If a nine-year-old was allowed to enter, then there must've been a reason. Most just thought he was added to show his talents by Masters from Ossus. Even the most paranoid of their temple on Coruscant, Stargo, believed it to be true.

_Ha!_ She spat in her mind. _If only that was true._

The Black's, as he was referred now, the first match showed _everyone_ why a warning about a nine-year-old was sent to every contestant. The boy with impossibly green eyes was a monster. It was the only name they could find. Calling him a genius fell short, a prodigy not enough.

According to what they heard from the talks between his Masters, the form he used was self-developed. The incredulity coloured the tone of every Master talking about it. _He wasn't made a Master because he is too young,_ they said.

_No matter,_ she shook her head rapidly and focused back on his opponent. Black was simply standing there with his lightsabers closed, as well as his eyes. As if noticing her focus, his eyes opened. She could swear a green gleam shot around when he did.

Her foots automatically moved into a defensive position. The words of Stargo was crystal clear to her at the moment. When he focused on me... My defeat felt, no, was certain, he cautioned them.

Black simply stepped forward.

Force rejoiced with that step. Force rose and fell in a beautiful dance with him. As someone who prided herself on her sensitivity, it was terrifying. Force didn't like _anyone_, it was indifferent to everything and it most certainly did not have a _favourite_. Except for him.

Force loved him.

The gravity on her shoulders increased as she drowned deeper in his aura, looked the depths of it. It was an involuntary look, a small curiosity that caused an image to imprinted her psyche forever.

It was two beings, entrenched deep in that ocean of aura washing over her. Two beings, for a moment, gave their full attention to her.

Her mind stuttered as it tried to understand the magnitude of what it was, and whose attention it held.

_Force. Death._

_Force. Death. Death. Force. Death. Force. Force. Death._

Whoosh!

It was only thanks to the reflexes deeply ingrained from her training she dodged the incoming Force attack. Following the rush of air beside her nearly made it impossible to stand.

And then, the lightsabers struck. Dismayed, and unable to respond properly to the assault, she simply dodged to side with a hair's breadth. The unrelenting attacks continued with no decrease in either power or speed. The only option was to try and dodge. So she dodged. And dodged. And dodged. And dodged.

The assault truly was unrelenting. The first hit was to her shoulder, even with training sabers it was like a hammer blow. It hit as she crouched to dodge a slash to her head. The following slash was impossible to evade.

Her second mistake - no, it wasn't a mistake, rather a shortcoming - was rolling slower than she should've - mid-roll a blow to her spine nearly ended the match. It was only through sheer luck and some willpower she finished the roll and stood up.

She was beaten. Even as she tried her best to evade oncoming attacks, he was simply standing some distance away, watching the fight as if it didn't involve him. No trace of exertion could be seen, simply because there wasn't.

When an opening between attacks came, she quickly jumped back with her eyes watching the lightsabers carefully to not get caught in a surprise attack.

The understanding dawned, but it was already too late.

Even as she turned to face her opponent the spike of Force coming that direction was clear.

Their eyes met just before the attack was launched. Those glowing green eyes flickered across her body, seemingly searching for _something_. Taliara for the life of her couldn't tell.

But his eyes... They were filled with _interest_.

There was an unending interest in them as he evaluated her. It was the same look of someone who found a puzzle that was hard to solve, met a mystery that made them oh so curious. Together with a small apology.

Boom.

A silent explosion launched her out of the stage fast enough to make everything blur in her vision. Her body crashed to the walls outside of the stage with a sharp crack. Pain wracked her body, and without a doubt, she knew following at least a few hours were going to be spent in the infirmary under the care of Healers.

As the darkness and the comfort of unconsciousness got ahold of her, she couldn't help but think of those eyes filled with interest.

Why?

* * *

_How interesting,_ Hadrian thought as he absentmindedly returned back to his chair. The words coming from both Heca and Morri repeated in his mind. "She felt us when you pressured her with your aura."

It was not a future problem for him, the Grandmaster already knew him as touched by both Magic and Death. It was something of a public secret between the Masters of Ossus. They were only discouraged from announcing the fact to other Temples to make sure no unsavoury people took even more interest of him.

But that was the Grandmaster. For a thirteen-year-old to those two...

Before the match, he decided to use another ability just to alleviate the boredom. Leveraging his aura to pressure and drown others was an idea he had for a long time - until he tried it during a duel. It worked well. In fact, it worked too well.

The pressure of his aura applied to others in full drowned them in it, without any way of escape. Their concentration, their focus all disappeared. His first target was a boy that held a lot of bad will because he took Anastasia. The four years older boy curled to the ground crying as his aura pressured him.

It was the infinite nature of Magic together with the apocalyptic feeling of Death that drove everyone to the ground.

Watching the reactions of others was always fun.

Taliara reacted to his aura like any others at first. She simply shook like a leaf in a windy day, her knees not steady as the brunt of his aura fell upon the unsuspecting girl. Following caused an alarm - as time passed, instead of succumbing she tried to sense what was going on. Her mind slipped from her body to his aura, falling deeper and deeper.

The unexpected response surprised him deeply. The girl's mind was almost scattered as it fell deeper. He let his aura back to normal with a panic. Killing people was not something he wished, especially if it was from a mistake.

Following Force attack forced the scattered mind to gather at the body, but not before his constant companions alerted him of her vision of the two.

With her mind back to normal, he didn't dare use his aura to push her down again. It was a mystery how she reacted, he had no wish to push her onto the brink of death once more.

The rest of the match was just like any other, she simply couldn't keep up with the barrage of attacks. It took a much longer time to get an opening to finish the match decisively, but not any harder than every match he had in the tournament.

The announcement of his overall victory of the tournament came very soon as the matches continued to determine the other ranks.

Boredom was getting him - if it wasn't expected for a contestant to watch the tournament to the end, he would've left already.

The sound of steps in his ears as he stared at the stage in boredom.

"Hadrian."

"Master Alyssa," he said, his vision never moving from the stages in front. "How can I help you?"

The always serene Jedi let out a hum. "Can you please follow me? The Masters wants to ask you some questions."

"So they do," Hadrian added, disinterest apparent in his tone. "I thought they would've waited until I participated in the Trials."

"We do," she sighed.

Hadrian turned to face her and raised a single eyebrow. "Then?"

"It is the Masters visiting that insisted upon it. They were not very keen on your victory."

"Very well." Hadrian stood up and dusted his already pristine robes. "Shall we go?"

The pathways towards the Council building was devoid of people. With everyone from Initiates to Masters watching the Tournament, the Temple looked almost abandoned.

Hadrian entered the room he had only been twice before. Once, to show him the room after his questions about the Jedi, and second, to question the duel he was forced to participate in by the Initiates. With the Masters' and Grandmaster's constant presence around, be it the lessons or duels, there hadn't been a need to visit here.

The years filled him with serenity and disinterest in nearly everything. From the words of Heca, it was his soul slowly adapting the balance that made it up. Only a few things truly interested him, all of them falling in three categories: Magic, Death and Aristana. The bubbly girl somehow became an important part of his life.

It was with this relaxation he entered the Council room to face the interrogation of the foreign Masters - Grandmaster would hold back the incessant questions anyways.

The Council room held many different emotions. Members of the Ossus Council had clear expressions of pride on their faces, chests were pushed and heads were held high. It was their student that did the impossible, their find that was so powerful in the Force. Even for the Jedi who was supposed to be always serene in their emotions felt pride when their students accomplished something amazing.

Eyes of the visiting Masters' held varying emotions from happiness to downright scowls. Glares to members of the High Council was all around the room, their whole posture screaming negativity.

Hadrian walked in, his face bored, and bowed slightly to the Grandmaster Taros. Zabrak Grandmaster smiled slightly and nodded in response. "Hadrian, welcome. Congratulations on your win in the Apprentice Tournament." He said warmly.

"Thank you, Grandmaster. It was with your and Masters' teachings I managed to accomplish such a win." Hadrian said, solemnity colouring his voice.

Slight smirks appeared on the Council members. This was a game they taught Hadrian well. As much as a Jedi used their lightsaber to achieve their objective, they used a silver tongue more. Foreign Masters knew as much, too.

"There is no need to be humble, Hadrian. I don't believe anyone could've taught you that lightsaber form. Where have you learned it?" Grandmaster asked, amusement filling his tone.

"I have created it myself, Grandmaster," Hadrian answered with utmost certainty.

"What?!"

"Foolish boy! Tell the name of your Master!"

The protests and incredulity of those who hadn't known the fact echoed around the walls. Hadrian smiled as he listened to those shouts. Like a thirsty man, he drank the chaos. It was so interesting, breaking the monotony this very hall enjoyed for such a long time.

"Do not bicker like fools," Grandmaster scolded the Masters as a mother did to her children, his silent voice stopping every sound in the room. "If he says so, then Hadrian created his own form."

"Grandmaster, are you saying that a _boy_ no older than ten created the third form?"

"Yes," Grandmaster answered tersely. "I haven't seen that form anywhere, neither have any other Master. Have you witnessed it anywhere else?" The answer made many of the Masters suck lemons that were extremely sour. It was obviously a new Form. If the creator was another Master, compliments would already be flying, no questions asked. But just an Initiate...

"Perhaps he learnt it from the Dark Jedi?" The question, that was perhaps intended to be silent, reverberated around the hall. Faces of every member of High Council turned to stone, along with many others.

"Master Taqulia," came the too calm voice of Master Alyssa. "What are you trying to say?"

Every eye on the room turned to the blue-skinned man with tentacles on his head. He was a member of a species Hadrian didn't know or seen before. Master Taqulia cringed from all the stares he was getting, but didn't back down. "What? It is as reasonable as believing a child created such a complicated Form himself!"

_Wow,_ what an idiot. Hadrian thought. _Had no one taught you that there is such a thing called going too far?_

"I think, Master Taqulia, you should leave and calm yourself." Grandmaster Taros asked in a level voice. Those who knew him well could hear the trace anger it held, and how hard it was to anger the Grandmaster.

"And," added Master Alyssa. "If you're willing to reject the truth to the level of slandering Initiates perhaps you aren't ready to be a Master, yet. Your promotion was made to fill the Council, after all. Maybe you haven't been ready to assume the responsibilities of becoming a Jedi Master." She bit out.

Murmuring filled the hall as the Master Taqulia's face turned blank. He stood up without answering Master Alyssa. It was with a silent and quick walk under the stares of every Master that he left the Council room, though not before he sent a glare to the nine-year-old boy standing in the middle of the room.

Hadrian met the hate-filled stare.

"That was unpleasant." Master Manda murmured after a period of silence.

"It was. But it was also necessary." Answered Master Mun as he stared at where Master Taquila sit.

"Moving on. Creators of the previous two Forms were given the title Battlemaster, and it was made a requirement to create a new Form to have the title of Battlemaster. Those who held the title were considered Jedi Masters, on top of being a Battlemaster. Thus, after you have told Master Alyssa about your new style, the Council has come to a decision." Grandmaster spoke in a loud voice, and he stared at Hadrian as he spoke.

"You're too young to become a Master, yet you've already completed the requirements for it. We cannot break the tradition of Battlemasters, thus, from this moment onwards you're an owner of that exalted title. However, you shall not be considered a Jedi Master, yet. Instead, after your Initiate Trials tomorrow, you will be participating your Knight Trials. If you fail, you will be given a chance to take the Trials every six months. When you pass both your Trials, you will be considered a Jedi Master, regardless of your age."

"I understand," Hadrian answered his face not betraying any emotion.

"Good, good." Grandmaster let out a sigh and smiled at him. A voice interrupted whatever he was going to say. "Battlemaster Black, what is the name of your Form?"

Hadrian gave his first childlike smile. "I call it the Satoru, the 0. Form, Way of the Black, Enlightenment Form."

"Where does the name come from?" Master Ooroo asked, academic curiosity apparent in historian Master's voice.

"I chose it since it connects the two tenets of the Order - Force and lightsaber combat," Hadrian answered without explaining any deeper. "If I may leave, Grandmaster, I need my rest for the Trials tomorrow."

Grandmaster didn't speak, he just nodded. He stared as Hadrian bowed and left. Question of whether he made the correct choice at the forefront of his mind.

* * *

**I've tried a new writing style this chapter. It is slower to write, but I think the end result is much better. What do you guys think?**


	8. Chapter 8 - Trials and Trials

Hadrian stood in front of the Trial building. It was a large, white building shaped like a block with no decoration on the outside. Supposedly made spartan just so there would be no distractions for those who came to take their Initiate Trials.

The Trials were a nice piece of work - passing it didn't mean the end of your Initiate period. It simply told the Knights and the Masters that you were skilled enough to become a Padawan. Until they were chosen to be taken as a Padawan, the training in the Temple continued.

Hadrian walked in with a purpose. Details of his Trial was sent to him last night. The usual four-part Trial was trimmed down to two for him. Council didn't even try to conceal the fact of his Initiate Trial being a farce. Even the allocated time was much shorter than usual, the rest of the day was decided to be spent on the following Trial.

The first Trial was the obstacle course, followed by precognition test.

"Are you ready?" The Master in charge asked in a monotone voice. This remedy to be something he repeated many, many times. With the exception of the one judging and another two observing the trial, there was no other Master present. Not that Hadrian expected.

"I have a question." Hadrian asked softly." Can I use any abilities on the obstacle course?"

The Master looked thoughtful, then nodded with an approving eye. "You can."

"Very well. I am ready to start."

Without a word, Master turned and pushed the button in front of him. The large panel in front of Hadrian slowly lowered as the numbers started to count down.

"3. 2. 1. Begin."

Hadrian immediately took the air. He could've cleared the obstacle course in the normal way, of course, but he was going for the shock and awe option. Part of it was to make sure he had enough of a legend that he could access the hoard of information in the Archives, other was to turn himself into an untouchable legend just so the politics didn't get in his way.

The endpoint was visible in the distance. He concentrated with his eye shut and turned on his heel. With a nearly silent crack, he disappeared from the air and appeared at the endpoint.

"Test complete. Spent time: 1.357 seconds. Congratulations." The robotic voice announced.

There was no one at the end, so he opted to wait. When the three Masters in the room appeared around a minute later with disturbed apparel and hurried steps, it became obvious that they didn't even consider him to be able to finish as fast as he managed.

"What was that, Battlemaster Black?" Asked one of the observers. There was no demand in his voice, which surprised Hadrian more than he let out. It seemed his title was more significant than he thought if it made Masters consider him as an equal.

"It was a skill I developed not long ago. I call it _apparition_, it allows nearly instantaneous travel over large distances. Flying is simply self-applied Telekinesis."

"How did you do-" The one that looked younger started, but the Master that asked first cut him off.

"What Knight Saruca meant is, will you be discussing your findings with the Council? It would be helpful if we had a way of travel unique to us. _Battlemaster_." The last word was thrown to the young Knight. Hadrian thought he was a Master from his clothing, but perhaps not.

"I will after my Trials, Master...?"

"Kar, I am Jedi Master Kar." Masters Kar answered with the same respect.

"It was nice to meet you, Master Kar, Knight Saruca, but I must continue with my Trial." Hadrian turned to the other Master in the room that was still looking at him in surprise.

"I-I will need to update the records first, you can follow the hall until the end. It is a white empty room. You can't miss it. I will be following you immediately." The Master which Hadrian still didn't know the name of stuttered as he replied.

Hadrian simply bowed and moved on. The Trials didn't seem very hard especially with the parts on Jedi Code and lightsaber passed by default.

Like he was told, it was easy to find the room. A completely empty white space with some disguised black openings on the walls.

He waited for a few minutes.

"Hadrian, it seems like you've hidden another ability from me." Master Alyssa's bright voice came. "You know you made it impossible for others to surpass your score, right? Now everyone will be competing for second place... Poor Initiates."

"Ah." He smiled in embarrassment. "Sorry?"

"Haha, don't worry about it. The records were made to be broken, after all." The ageless looking woman laughed.

"I thought it was the rules?" Hadrian quipped.

Master Alyssa simply smiled, not continuing the banter. They didn't have time to waste at the moment.

Their familiarity rose as Hadrian spent more and more time in and out of his lessons with her. It was a lot of fun, and, even if he wouldn't ever admit he liked her mothering especially since he never had the chance to experience it before. She probably knew it, though. Most of the other Master simply considered him her adopted son as the two got closer. It was for that reason she was so against the Master that slandered her precious little Hadrian.

"Battlemaster Black, I am starting the test. Be prepared, you know the details of this test."

Like before, the numbers counted down in the air. When they hit zero, the walls opened to some weapons that started shooting him blaster fire. He took the air immediately and, let himself open to Magic, trusting it to guide him.

Left. Right. Left. Down. Down. Up. Right.

So it went. Moving with Magic aided by his muscles were much faster than the opposite. He moved like lightning, some of his turns were impossible to catch without the trained and augmented eye of a Jedi. It was only with the application of Force the Masters watching could keep up with him.

Watching him weave and dance around the blaster bolts behind the glass panel, Alyssa's face was filled with a proud smile. She was happy to see him come this far. It wasn't even the close to the end of his abilities, she knew that too. Even now with the exception of experience, she was left in the dust by Hadrian. When, not if, he became a Master and experienced the wider Galaxy, he was going to be the greatest Jedi the Order has ever seen, probably ever will.

Time passed. Hadrian, with his mind open to Magic, had no concept of time. It was similar to meditation for him - with his subconscious mind following the directions Magic gave it.

At the moment, the room was fully operational - the four walls, floor and the ceiling were filled with turrets firing into the room that left nearly no room to dodge - if someone couldn't fly, that is.

As the time hit the two-hour mark, it was obvious the rate of fire the turrets had was not enough to reach the speeds Hadrian couldn't dodge.

The Master in charge of the Trials looked quite helplessly to Master Alyssa, if this went on they would be watching him until he stopped from either exhaustion, hunger or thirst.

"Stop it." Master Alyssa ordered. "We don't have time to wait until he is exhausted. It could take days."

"Is that appropriate, Master Alyssa?" He gulped. "Perhaps Battlemaster Black would want to set even a higher record?"

As much as he respected Master Alyssa, he absolutely didn't want to offend a nine-year-old Battlemaster.

"Don't worry, he needs to start his Knight Trials before the day ends."

"Alright."

"Hadrian," she called to him with a smile as he slowly floated down. "That was very good. Now, go eat and be ready in two hours."

"It was easy," Hadrian shrugged.

"You show off," she spoke in mock outrage. "We'll see your attitude in the Knight Trials. Now chop chop, you have a lesson soon."

"Sure, whatever," he dismissed with a wave and turned to leave. Before he could take a step, he stopped in horror. "A lesson?"

"Oh yes, it was my idea too. You would've chewed out every Force test we would have put you on, so I suggested something else." She answered with a smug smile. "Why not let him lecture the Initiates and Padawans on the Jedi Code? He is going to be a Master soo, after all."

"You, you!" He couldn't find the words in the face of her damn smile. "Why?" He cried out.

"Hahahaha," she laughed, Hadrian could swear it was an absolutely evil laugh. Her eyes were filled with a dangerous glint. "I told you I'd have my revenge for turning me and my clothes to pink. You should've just let me catch you that day."

"What?!" He exclaimed. "It was two years ago! I was just seven back then!"

"It doesn't matter. Now leave, you don't want to miss your first lesson."

Hadrian gritted his teeth. "This isn't the end, woman." He sent her a glare.

"Sure it is," she winked.

Hadrian snorted and left for the mess hall. This was just like her to do.

* * *

Waiting in front of the was surprisingly nerve-racking. Hadrian cleared the details of his first of two trials by asking Master Mun, and he affirmed Master Alyssa. He was asked to give a lesson on Initiates and Padawans.

It was a requirement of being a Master, they said. He snorted. Him, teaching philosophy? What an absurd notion.

If they had asked him to teach Force skills or even lightsaber forms, he would've been happy to comply - he had at least some experience with that in DA. But the Code? He wasn't sure whether his thoughts on the subject would be even acceptable to the Masters. Especially with no time to prepare...

_Screw it._

Going with the flow seemed the best idea. At least the Masters would be in the room to interrupt if he went too deep outside the Code.

He took a deep breath and entered the class.

It was a fairly large class that likely held at least a hundred Initiate and Padawans - together with most of the Council. Even Grandmaster was present, sitting on his seat looking in deep thought. After he entered, the Zabrak tipped his head slightly.

All the conversations crawled to a halt as he walked to the front of the room. Every eye present trailed him until he stopped, staring him in widely different emotions.

"I heard he's the youngest..."

"Yes yes, Council made him a Battlemaster."

"His own lightsaber style..."

"You should've seen it, there was a beauty to it."

"How young..."

The hushed whispers slowly filled the room as his age became apparent. Hadrian cleared his throat. "As you all probably know, I am Battlemaster Black. You may address me as either Battlemaster or Master during the course of this lesson even if I'm not one yet for the sake of convenience. I have been tasked to give a lesson on the central part of being a Jedi. Any questions before we start?"

"Battlemaster Black, what does your title mean?" Asked a young Togruta after a few seconds of silence as his words sank in. She looked no older than ten, not much older than him. The pure awe and respect in her eyes and voice made him hold back a cringe, however.

"A Battlemaster refers to a Jedi that had created their own lightsaber form - mine being the third. My form is called Satoru, the Enlightenment Form." He explained slowly. An excited Sullustan opened his mouth to ask another question, but Hadrian cut him off. "You can ask me about my form later, it is not the subject of this lesson."

"Now, who can tell me the Code?" He asked the room. Involving his students seemed to be a nice idea.

A blue-eyed Draethos raised his voice. "Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force."

"Very good," Hadrian nodded approvingly to the fourteen-year-old boy. "For this lesson, I am going to focus on the first and fourth parts of the mantra. Other three are much different than these two, which are quite connected."

^ "Let us start with the most basic, and the one that stumbles the most Initiates and Padawans, first part. Emotion, yet peace. Not so much contradictory as hard to understand. What is the connection between emotion and peace?"

^ "I will go even deeper in fact, and just focus on the first word. Emotion. Such a wildly used and loaded word. Anger. Love. Curiosity. Hate. Like. Dislike. Lust. Irritation. Happiness. Sadness. All being categorized under the same term, emotion, yet have wildly different meanings."

At this point, he turned to the board and drew a square, then divided into four equal squares in two by two fashion. He put labels on them, positive and negative for the columns, strong and weak for the lines.

"If I were to categorize emotions, this would be how I'd do it. Take love, a strong positive emotion. Anger, strong negative. Dislike, weak negative."

He started connection the strong emotions with weak ones. "For every strong emotion, there is a weak version. Hate - dislike. Anger - irritation. Just to give an example."

^ "Now, we need to return to the Code. Emotion, yet peace. Passion, yet serenity. We're sentients, it is ingrained to our very being to feel emotion, even for most logical ones. We feel emotions, and will do regardless of how much we try to deny or reject. It is in fact very dangerous to do either - emotions are nothing bad."

He could see few frowns from the Padawans, but Masters either looked intrigued or deep in thought. Some of them were focusing on the classification he put on the board.

"However, just letting our emotions flow at every given moment is a terrible idea - for us and for those we're responsible with. Emotion, yet peace. We're Jedi. We always need to be able to make a decision with our rationality, for we're generals, diplomats, leaders, rulers..."

"We're not just responsible for ourselves, but for many, many people who trust Jedi to lead them correctly. We can't let our emotions to guide us when so much is at stake. During a battle, a moment of anger can lead to disastrous defeats resulting in many deaths. Leaning to a wrong decision during a negotiation due to liking a party more than others can cause many innocents to suffer needlessly."

"We may have emotions, but it is that - we _have_ emotions, they do not rule us."

He stopped to take a brief glance around the room. Most were clearly following what he was saying. Some, like the Draethos that answered his question about the Code, looked to be frowning. He seemed to have some problems with the lesson so far.

"Passion, yet serenity. This one much more contradictory than the first part of the Code. What does it mean?" He gestured to the classifications he drew before. It means that the strong emotions you see here, need to be always in check. The weak ones are constant moods that we fluctuate between - while they can be distracting, they are not dangerous. What we need to be careful of, is letting them turning into the strong ones. They can and will turn into them. Nothing we can do will prevent it. Just like how love is illogical, hate is too even if they are on the opposite side of the spectrum."

^ "How can someone keep strong emotions in check? Balance. It is always the balance that a Jedi seeks. We must not let an emotion take control and suppress every other. Hate is a great example of this, it can so easily become an obsession and fuel itself while poisoning the mind."

So the lesson went, for nearly one and a half hours when he finished it. "Alright, this is it for this lesson. Meditate on it before going to sleep tonight, as emotions are a huge part of your life. There will be a time where you'll need to make decisions hard enough without emotions kicking everything up."

The students, hearing the silent dismissal quickly left the room, most of them throwing him glances as they did so. His lesson seemed to resonate with most, which was more than what he wanted.

"So, what's the verdict?" He asked casually when only ones left in the room were Masters.

"Interesting." Master Mun regarded him curiously. "It was different then what I expected. Given your age, I would've been more than content if you were to repeat your own lessons with us but..." he gestured the board. "I've never heard of the Code explained like this. Is it something you've read about, or did you come up with it yourself?"

"I've come up with it myself, actually. It seemed like a good way of making sure my emotions haven't gotten out of control. A mental check on those subjects I've told you about helps me immensely." He shrugged blithely. It was actually something he used for his Occlumency, but they didn't need to know that.

"I wonder if it would help us too..." Master Manda murmured, then raised his voice. "I'm speaking for myself, but you're definitely ready for becoming a Master, at least on the teaching front. I've no doubt you can teach about the Force just as well."

"I agree," came the voice of Master Alyssa. "Although I'm somewhat put out that you've changed my lessons around quite a lot. What, do you not believe them to be enough?" She asked in a menacing voice, though the mirth in her eyes was impossible to hide.

"You must be joking, Master, I just spoke about my limited understanding of the subject." He denied her humbly and continued with childish excitement. "In fact, you're the bestest Master of all!"

"It was a good lesson," Grandmaster spoke, cutting he banter before it could start. All his teachers came to like young Hadrian as a family member, and every one of them noticed how close those two had gotten. He approved, Hadrian having more connections to the light side was always a good thing. Even he himself thought the boy as more of a surrogate grandson rather than a prodigal Initiate.

Hadrian's face turned solemn immediately. "If there are no objections, then you've passed the first part of your Trials," Grandmaster continued after a moment of thought. No objections came, most of the Masters nodded to his passing. "Last part will start immediately. You'll be going Ilum to make yourself a lightsaber - you'll find your own food, water and shelter until you find a crystal that is suited for you. There will be no weapons given, as well as no backup clothes. It will be a test of your Force powers and connection."

"Grandmaster, may I visit my friends before leaving?" Hadrian inquired worriedly. He hadn't spoken to Aristana since before the tournament and now he was leaving for god knows how long.

"I'm sorry, but I must reject. You'll be leaving immediately - your ship is ready at the bay." He answered apologetically.

"I see..." Hadrian murmured. "Master Alyssa, can you inform Aristana of my Trial at least? I wish to put her mind to ease."

"Of course Hadrian. You be careful on your Trial, and may the Force be with you."

"You too."

As the ship took off to its determined destination, he relaxed back for the next three hours of travel. Seeing the worry on the faces of his Masters made him somewhat sad, by at the same time happy.

He now hoped that Aristana wouldn't kill him after he survived whatever hell the frozen planet threw him.


	9. Chapter 9 - Ilum

White.

It was the first thought that popped in Hadrian's mind when his ship descended towards Ilum. The world was a white sphere seemingly with no imperfections - it was mesmerizing. The veritable storms of white pulled his mind deep. From mountains to caves, the single colour was dominant.

Cold, was the following thought. After exiting the warm heating of his transport, Ilum was freezing. as much as white was prominent and visible on the planet, cold that came with it encompassed everything.

His ship left immediately after his exit. The warnings given to him before his take off on Temple seemed such exaggerations at the time. The burrowing cold ignoring any kind of protection his robes could provide proved otherwise. For a Knight with limited knowledge of the Magic, this was a very, very dangerous trial. No heating, no food, no water, no protection until he found his crystals... It would've been hell, he was sure.

Hadrian slapped a warming charm.

Water and accommodations were easily handled, it was just the food that was a problem. He never understood why it couldn't be conjured - you could summon, multiply or even transfigure if you had food but no matter what it couldn't be conjured. It was a mystery that he very much like to solve.

Opting to not walk through the mounting snow, Hadrian took flight. From the air, he could see a long distance away. It was a freeing experience, every time he left the ground the ability to move all three directions left him giddy like a child he looked like.

Randomly flying around the white world brought a smile on his face. From his childhood, his enjoyment of exploration had never left - simply ignored. On Tython the flight was still much of a difficult objective, until his experiments on the Temple he never managed to fly with ease. And Temple was never a place he could fly around randomly just for the sake of it.

Quite similar to Hogwarts, in the way that there was always an eye on him, even when he wanted to do nothing but simply fly on his broom.

He gave a lopsided grin. He targeted a mountain way off the distance and sped up, and up, and up. An explosion of air followed by an immediate descent of silence made him aware that he pierced the sound barrier. Not that he gave it much thought - the rapidly moving away scenery entranced him deeply.

Crash!

He was thrown backwards violently but somehow managed to stay in the air. A fast glance around confused him, there was nothing around that he could've crashed - until that is, the massive wave of magic thrown him back once more.

The wave of magic was easily found, but Hadrian for the life of him couldn't find out who was sending these waves of magic.

After the third wave hit him, he managed to stand his ground. The spiking of his own magic gave him much-needed respite and shield from the attack. With eyes furiously moving around, he tried to find the aggressor. He didn't have any more luck than the last time.

"Who are you?!" He cried in frustration as the waves and waves of magic raged around his shield, trying to crush it.

The amount of magic thrown around was awe-inducing, Hadrian wasn't even aware that someone not as connected to magic as he was could even dare to channel. It was something he would expect from Tython...

"A natural occurrence?" Hadrian murmured to himself as he furrowed his brows. While the storms and waves of magic were much similar to Tython, it lacked a certain naturalness apparent in Heca's main world.

Scratch that, he was damn sure whatever was happening on Ilum, they were absolutely not natural. With his senses extended, it was obvious that the cold wasn't either - something or _someone_ caused whatever was going on.

Such a mystery it was. Coupled with the _Gree_ pyramid he found on Tython, it was quickly becoming apparent that the galaxy had a colourful past. There were whispers, rumours of rumours that machines and races so old that the Galactic Republic seemed to have the age of a baby compared to them.

The fabled disturbances of hyperspace noted by the first explorers of Republic pointed to the same mystery as well.

Sadly, this wasn't the time for it - his Trials came first. When he had access to the archives of the Order, he would return to Ilum once more, to see what was going on. It reminded him of his search on durasteel, rather, the lack of success on the subject.

He shook his head. There was no need to hurry.

He turned his attention to his task. Find compatible crystals by following the Magic. Easy. Like he did many, many times when he was in the Temple, he took a meditation position and let himself open to Magic.

The eagerness of it never stopped to amaze him. Every time he opened himself with the intent of asking a direction or an answer, the nearly infinite answers he glimpsed before asking his own question was as amazing as it was terrifying. The magic truly could answer every question he could think of.

Hadrian took a deep breath. _Please show me two most compatible crystals for my lightsaber core on Ilum._

All the bright answers filling his mind disappeared - two dots side by side took their place. They were near him, but in a cave deep below. Very, very deep.

He carefully followed where the magic took him. Past the mountain, he targeted before, then follow the coming mountain range until a small opening presented bang in the middle of the steepest face of a mountain that was in the middle of five very different mountains.

If he couldn't fly, it would be impossible to enter without a vehicle carrying him up.

Inside of the cave was surprisingly empty, and not so surprisingly shrouded in absolute darkness. He floated a few meters above the ground, just to make sure he didn't hit anything weird.

Under the light of _Lumos_ he advanced deeper inside. The stalagmites were quite numerous, most had either a pool of icy cold water or just plain ice. He could glimpse blue and green sheen of crystals laying buried inside the rocks and ice.

The caves took a sharp dive, getting larger and larger as it dove into the mountain. The surfaces slowly turned smooth as the cave lost its rock formations and, surprisingly, ice.

Instead, water appeared to be dripping from the ceiling as well as entering from the entrance but didn't freeze. Under the warming charm, it was impossible to tell the temperature. But from the looks of it, the temperature was rising higher deeper he went.

There was a weird humming sound that was becoming more irritating as he continued as well. It was obvious that wherever it was coming from was his objective as well, and it felt weird as hell to him to hear a clearly artificial sound nearly a kilometer deep into a mountain on a planet that had a living population of perhaps 20.

The cave twisted and turned as it got deeper until it opened up to a room that was clearly manmade - metal plates were lining the walls. There seemed to be old consoles and computers all around the room, as well as furnitures like chairs and sofas. A door towards the front had light shining through.

Of course, everything was pretty much in the worst shape possible. It looked impossible to repair even with the most overpowered charm he could handle.

But those were not what captured Hadrian's attention. No, it was something else, something he absolutely did not expect. It was skeletons. Skeletons upon skeletons, scattered around in a circle, rising up upon each other with an empty space in the middle - reserved for a single humanoid skeleton.

He had no idea what to make of it. The skeletons were preserved in the state he found them in for at least thousands of years, the state of the room guaranteed it.

Who were they?

Except for the skeleton in the middle that looked pretty much like a human, he didn't even know what the species were. With an amateur look, he could somewhat distinguish three different species. One of them was a tentacled species that looked like a Parwan, but instead of tentacle foot, it was the hands. Another that was pretty reptilian, with no distinct appearance. The last one was quite a large species that had eyes extended to sides with bones...

That sounded quite similar to what he encountered on Tython. In fact, he would be nice money that they had at least a common ancestor at one point. From their size, limbs and distinctive eyes, it was impossible to not have any connections.

The lack of any magical residue was not helping the mystery. These beings were most likely connected to the magical anomaly that was going on around the planet, but he had no way of confirming.

He examined the remains thoroughly - a pensive could get him the photos. At least it was a start, with photos Luna could start scouring the, admittedly newly developing holonet and any archives he got into.

With that handled, he returned to his task. The feeling was coming behind the door that was illuminating inside, and he stepped through carefully.

It was an empty room with the exception of a column in the middle. The column looked a lot like a natural stalagmite and stalactite not exactly connected, but with very little distance between the tips of both.

At the end on those tips, two crystal were shining, literally. They were the source of the light in the room. A golden crystal embedded in the tip of the stalactite, and a dark purple crystal in the stalactite.

He could feel a nearly physical pull from the two crystals. They were clearly connected to him one way or another.

He summoned the two. A warmth entered his body, and he _knew_ that they were meant to be his - just like how his wands were. They chose his magic and bonded immediately that if there was never a lore of lightsaber mastery, he would be the master of his lightsabers just like the wands. They most likely wouldn't work right for somebody else too.

Crystals were much like primitive focuses. No, that wasn't right. Rather, they had different abilities, instead of boosting the spells, they increased the connection with magic. The fascination of Jedi with lightsaber was much like wizards with wands.

_Huh,_ he thought. _It explained the way Jedi evolved through the long years._

Without a wand to delicately craft spells, and instead of having a focus that boosted raw magical connection, the Order focused on using that boosted connection to move fast, jump high, sense the environment and magic, push and pull...

His questions about the Jedi were answered on some level at least. The change a difference in foci caused was absolutely astonishing and would probably cause any historian to drool.

The room started shaking violently. The crystals clearly served a higher purpose than just light sources, as rocks started falling from the ceiling. The cave was collapsing.

He rushed back to the previous room and surveyed it for the last time. Not noting anything of interest, he apparated. The entrance caved in very quickly, and the amount of rubble made sure that he or anybody else was not going back in anytime soon, and not without a lot of effort.

It was time for him to go to the Jedi Temple on Ilum to build his own lightsaber. The place he was dropped off to Ilum was quite close to his destination. In the distance, the Temple was clearly visible as a blue speck between all the white. Buried in a mountain, it was not very large, most likely because it was made to house no more than fifty at a time.

He descended to the ground and entered the Temple. Before he could go deeper, a Master welcomes him inside. "Are you Battlemaster Black?"

Hadrian nodded. "I am."

"Welcome, to the Temple of Ilum. We were warned of your impending visit for your lightsaber construction. Have you found the crystal or crystals attuned to you? We cannot allow you accommodations otherwise, as it was decreed by the High Council for your Trial."

"Oh?" Hadrian raised a single eyebrow. "The others going through the Knight Trials can stay the night in the Temple?" He questioned.

"Yes indeed," the Master answered, curiosity colouring his tone too. "We were asked to not accept you inside if you came for any other reason than to construct your lightsaber and leave. From the information we got from the Council, it was so that you would feel the brunt of the Trial."

Apparently, the Council thought it would be way too easy for him if he had a place to stay. Considering they had no idea of his transfiguration abilities, his trial was clearly designed to torture him. That was totally not nice.

"So the did," he murmured. "Regardless, I do wish to construct my lightsaber before anything else. Can you show me where I need to go, Master...?"

"Telava. Do follow me, please."

They walked under the dim lighting of the corridor. On the way Hadrian had seen no one else - the Temple appeared totally empty except for the one in front of him.

"Master Telava, what is the population of this temple? We haven't met anyone else since the entrance." He asked.

"It fluctuates around thirty," Master Telava answered. "And it is quite normal for us to meet no one here. The Masters that reside in the Temple, myself included, do it as a place of meditation in silence. Ilum is an empty planet, and the Republic doesn't have any records of here."

The silence descended once more. Hadrian had no question to ask, his mind on what he saw during the day and Master Telava didn't seem to be inclined to start a conversation.

They stopped in front of a closed door. "Here it is. This meditation room has the parts and any instructions you'll need. Do you need anything else?"

Hadrian inclined his head. "No, thank you for bringing me here. I will be beginning immediately."

Master Telava nodded and left. Hadrian didn't stare the back of the man, he entered the room.

"Woah."

When Master Telava told him that this room had any part he would need, he was not kidding. From lances to whips, parts for any kind of light-weapon was on display. Some of them were quite intriguing too.

He shook his head. He came here to build a lightsaber and that was what he was going to do. He took one of the consoles lying around and started reading on the subject.

The construction of the lightsaber required a magical trained in at least Telekinesis. The delicate parts could not be connected with anything else, as the weapon filled the nearly 90% of the space it had. On top of that, activation of a crystal as a power source required a connection created from crystal to magic.

That was the reason why lightsaber was not the staple melee weapon of the army. There was no way of mass producing it, and Jedi would never build lightsabers for Republic, no matter how close of an ally they were.

As he started working, he soon forgot the time.

* * *

"Naga Sadow, you should stop pushing the Council. The Dark Lord is getting annoyed with you. I fear something bad may come to your head." A red-eyed red skinned man spoke to someone who looked very similar to him, only with brown eyes.

"Master Simus, I don't understand why! You've taught us all our history, and our ancient enemies. Why can't we attack?!" The man called Naga Sadow answered passionately.

"You do know the reason, Naga. We aren't ready for a war that scale, not yet." Simus closed his eyes for a moment and spoke resignedly. From his reaction, it was apparent this was a recurring argument they had.

"When? When are we going to be ready? While we sit here twiddle our thumbs, the Empire grows stale, and we fight each other instead of crushing our enemies. Our resources are depleting, our armies became weak!" Naga Sadow shouted back. He was getting frustrated. Why couldn't the Council understand that they needed to expand, instead of plotting to increase their own power?!

"Because the enemies of our ancestors still live, Naga. The Jedi and their staunch allies the Republic. Our public has forgotten them, considers them no different than a myth, a boogeyman but we know differently. Don't forget, they had driven our ancestors back, destroyed them so thoroughly that few remained." Simus took a deep breath and continued.

"It wasn't until they started breeding that the Noble Clans was born, our clans came along. Their blood flows through our veins, and their enemies didn't consider stomping on all of us!" Simus' voice was rising as he spoke. He was getting in the argument as well.

"Then it is as much an expansion as it is revenge! How dare they kill our ancestors, just because they choose Dark Side of the Force over their self-righteous Light Side? Even if ancestors may not have called themselves the same name, they were still our ancestors, they were the ones that taught the Force to us." They had this talk many, many times.

"I know, Naga, I know." Simus deflated for a moment. "I agree with you too. But we cannot be fractured at the moment - not with their shadow upon us. We need to be strong, if only to survive the coming war." He sounded quite tired. Waiting to see whether an enemy many considered a boogeyman would discover them or not was stressful.

Naga Sadow harrumphed. "So be it, Master Simus. Talk to others and tell them about our enemies, our future. We cannot live in this sector forever, we need to expand." Then, his voice heated. "Don't forget, Master Simus. Our species is the greatest warriors. We are unparalleled in Force. We are the rulers of all. We are the Sith!"


	10. Chapter 10 - Return

Hadrian stood in the middle of the same Council room once more. Not even fifteen days passed since his promotion to title of Battlemaster. He couldn't help but feel somewhat bored as he waited for the announcement.

His mind was on the weapons he made not long ago. Two lightsabers, one bright gold and one dark purple. They were very strong focuses, not on the Elder Wand's level but clearly stronger than any normal focus he could've had. It was a testament to their mysterious origin, one which he couldn't wait to start searching.

He turned his attention back to the room.

Whispering and talking ended a few minutes of waiting. The council members that didn't have frequent contact with him looked like they were forced to eat something that didn't agree with them. Whatever the conclusion was, they definitely did not agree with it.

"Battlemaster Hadrian, this council declares your Knight Trials successfully ended. As decreed before, passing the trial promoted you to a Master. While the Council would've liked to wait for you to gain some experience, your promotion won't be challenged. As of this moment, you're a Jedi Master. An appropriate attire has been made available for you." Grandmaster declared formally.

There was a resigned air of acceptance of his promotion. Except for Master Alyssa, who was sitting with proud happiness on her face, the council members did not seem too happy. The experience and age issue went much deeper than he thought at first.

He nodded in lieu of answering.

Grandmaster accepted his gesture as it meant and continued. "Your first mission is to write or record your Form, as was down by the previous Battlemasters. You may use either a normal console, a video recording or a Holocron. The decision is yours, however, a Holocron would be much helpful."

This was a surprise to the others as well, as they turned to Grandmaster in interest. The gleams of curiosity about his Form was shining through their eyes.

"I will be writing the form. Do be warned, however, it is a much difficult form. Even if I was personally teaching there wouldn't be a high percentage of success, let alone learning from a book." Hadrian said, staring pointedly at the Grandmaster. The greed was apparent in the eyes of most Initiates and Knights. Even some Masters wanted his style.

He expected an amount of interest in his Form with the show of superiority he demonstrated in the Tournament, but the downright greedy fascination of nearly everyone was above his expectations.

He had no wish of giving his hard work easily to outsiders as well.

Not to mention most Jedi didn't have the required amount of magical power and control.

Apparently, the Grandmaster understood what he meant and didn't pursue the subject. "I understand. After your recordings are finished, you're free to leave the Temple. Dismissed."

"May I leave as well, Grandmaster?" Alyssa asked right after his dismissal. She stared the eyes of Grandmaster, and a silent conversation went between their eyes as Grandmaster contemplated the request.

Whatever Grandmaster saw was enough to convince him, as he acceded the request with a slight nod. "You may."

She quickly made her way to the door and made a follow me gesture to Hadrian.

* * *

"Ungrateful little shits," Alyssa muttered under her breath, her eye twitching in obvious annoyance.

She was walking fast enough that Hadrian needed to use some magical reinforcement to keep up with her. Her robes whirled in the wind as she sped past the halls.

"Master Alyssa?" Hadrian asked, curious what made calm Master so annoyed that forced her to curse.

"Those Masters in the Council. They didn't want to make you a Master, because you were so young." She answered tersely. She was still fuming from the conversation she had with the council a few hours before.

"What? Wasn't it them that said I was going to be promoted if I managed to pass the exams?" Hadrian asked in shock, his eyes opening slightly.

What the hell, they were going to go back on their word? Yes, expecting it to go without any issue was a bit too much, but in his defence, he was sure that the word of Grandmaster would be enough to counter pretty much anything.

"Those Masters," She said the word with a sneer that reminded Hadrian of Malfoy, "didn't expect you to pass the exam they made deliberately difficult."

"Ah, so that was the reason why Master on Ilum was ordered to not accept me before I finished the Trial." He said in understanding. He didn't expect it to be changed because they didn't want him to pass. The actions reminded him of Dumbledore. Manipulating the situation because they _knew_ the best was a slippery slope in his opinion.

"Yes, I learned after the change was made. According to the all-knowing Masters, you needed to learn some humility before being allowed to become a Master." She hissed angrily. "They just didn't want to lose control of you."

"Control of me?" Hadrian stared at Alyssa. "What do you mean they didn't want to lose control of me?"

She gave Hadrian a contemplative look. "How much do you know about the title of Battlemaster?"

"Not much. I didn't have time to visit the archives after I was given the title." He shrugged. The Trials age too much of his time, even if he wanted to know more about it.

"There is something you need to know, then. Title of Battlemaster cannot be taken back and it is a Master level title, meaning every Battlemaster is also a Jedi Master -"

"And since it cannot be taken back, my promotion to being a Jedi Master can also not be taken back." Hadrian finished her words.

Holy shit. That was actually amazing, and a little terrifying. How could the Council make such an oversight, Hadrian didn't know. A Battlemaster could do anything and still remain a Jedi Master... No wonder the Council didn't want the title given to him. Not only they lost the ability to threaten him with demotion or exile, but he was also a nine year old in their eyes. A mature one, yes, but a nine-year-old regardless.

If he was in the Council, he would've tried to cling any kind of check and control mechanism as well.

"Oh..." He trailed in wonder.

"Yes oh," Alyssa repeated knowingly. "You should understand why they were vary of giving the title."

* * *

After reaching Alyssa's personal room, she pointed a chair for Hadrian to sit. She was searching for a recording given to her together with Hadrian years ago, with a note to give him when he was mature enough.

He may not be old enough for many, but he was mature enough. To top it off, he was just promoted to one of the highest positions in the galaxy. If that didn't show enough proof of his maturity, then she didn't know what did.

She sent a fleeting glance to Hadrian. He was sitting straight, looking somewhat bored but his eyes showed curiosity about her actions. After all, she invited him without informing him of why.

As she searched, the pile of random objects slowly occupied the middle of her room. Just as she was about to start searching another room, her hand hit her objective. "Finally!" She muttered, taking the crib.

The recording was inside the crib, where she left after handing him to Fosterers in what felt like a lifetime ago.

She handed the recording to Hadrian. "This recording came with you, to be handed to you in due time. It is probably from your family, but I don't know what is inside the recording."

Hadrian slowly grasped the disk, his expression equal parts excited and reverent. "This is from my family...?" He repeated.

Most probably, she laughed at his expression, her eyes filled with mirth. Seeing him like this reminded her of his age. No matter how mature he acted, he was still a child.

"Go on, watch it in your room." She urged.

Hadrian bolted without even giving her another look.

* * *

As he rushed to his room, Hadrian could still hear the following laughter from Alyssa. He knew he acted ridiculous just then, but he couldn't help his excitement.

He was waiting for this moment for years.

The recording wasn't filled with somewhat cryptic teachings about changing something to another, resizing, colouring etc...

Basically, a combined, mysterious transfiguration and charms lesson that was filled with spiritual and emotional bullshit.

It was a family secret - their personal magic.

In single whoop, this recording allowed him to refer Magic with its proper name citing it his only familial connection, together with his other magical skills.

It was a genius move on his part, he couldn't help but congratulate his smarts. Not being able to use charms made daily tasks way too hard, especially cleaning his room by hand after getting used to doing it with a wave of his hand.

Now, he could use the same explanation for his new skills. Either they were from his family inheritance, or he discovered them from the aforementioned inheritance.

He even had an excuse to not teach this stuff to others. They were his family's and they were going to stay that way. No Council was going to force him otherwise.

Especially considering the huge amount of damage a person could do with these abilities, there was no reason to tempt fate.

* * *

He opened the door of his room and froze. Sitting on his bed, was his best friend Aristana, staring at the door in emotion between happy and angry.

"Oh shit," Hadrian muttered. He had totally forgotten about her.

He slowly entered the room and put the disk to his table. Pulling a chair he sat in front of the bed. He was honestly nervous.

"Long time no see." Said Aristana flatly, staring him down.

Hadrian winced. The greeting was so much of a departure from her usually bubbly way of talking that he honestly felt the discomfort deep in his bones.

"I'm sorry?" He offered weakly.

"So you are."

How a twelve-year-old girl could cut him with her words so easily he had no idea, but there it was.

"I really am. I know I was supposed to meet up with you after the tournament, but the Council informed me of the Trials and I went on to prepare for them." Hadrian explained apologetically.

"So you couldn't even find time to send a message?"

The truth was, in his excitement he forgot all about her. Nevertheless, he obviously couldn't say that. It would only serve to make her even angrier. "Err..."

"Do you have any idea how worried I was? I haven't talked with you for two days then a Master came and told me you were sent to Ilum for your Trial. Ilum! Knights thrice your age died there!" Her voice slowly picked up, and near the end, she was shouting.

Her upset was breaking Hadrian's heart. She was near tears. "I didn't want to worry you." He muttered as he hugged the young girl. "I won't do it again, okay?"

His words had for some reason the opposite reaction. She burst into tears and hugged him with an amount of strength that was not normal for a twelve-year-old, even a magically enhanced one.

He heard her talking between sobs. "You're... leaving... me." It was hard to understand exactly what she was saying, but he got the gist of it.

She was afraid that he was going to leave now that he was a Master. Rather, he was going to leave without her. She didn't want to lose her best and, because of her association with him, her only friend. She was afraid of being alone.

"I am not going anywhere." He muttered to her ear, as he drew circles on her back. It worked, somewhat, as she stopped crying a few minutes later.

"Promise?" She asked him somewhat childishly.

"I promise." He answered in the most solemn voice he could muster.

The silence fell upon the room, only interrupted with Aristana's infrequent sniffs. Hadrian thought upon his decision once more. Seeing her afraid of his leaving showed how dependent she became of him, slowly. He was not going to leave her behind, and this was the best way to ensure it.

"Do you want to become my Padawan?" He asked, hating how his voice sounded weak and unsure.

She simply stared at him blankly.

"I know I am not the most knowledgeable of Master's, neither the best one, but I thought how we couldn't stay together if you had another Master and how I didn't want a Padawan anytime soon, I thought -"

She cut his ramblings with an excited jump to his embrace. "Yes yes yes!"

Her excitement was contagious, and soon Hadrian started laughing. He didn't know how deeply concerned whether she was going to accept his offer or not. With his nerves leaving, he couldn't help his laughter.

Soon, he noticed Aristana still didn't leave his embrace and took the chance to tickle her. Although Chiss physiology was quite different than humans, they were, inexplicably, ticklish even more than an average human.

It soon devolved into a tickling war, and Hadrian was actually happy that he at least got to chance to live the childhood he missed.

After calming down, Aristana informed him of her desire to join the Trials nevertheless. Because of his instructions, and her genius the council had given her permission to enter the Trials a year earlier, so there were around eleven standard months left.

Her decision helped Hadrian too, as he needed to stay and write his own form. A quite time intensive mission, taking at least nine months. It left around two months for Aristana's Trials, which could be used as free time.

* * *

Naga Sadow went over the military statistics once more, taking notes at the side as he did. The total number of ships the Empire owned was rising constantly, as the shipyards on Korriban built more and more.

He couldn't help but feel that Empire was weakening overall, however. Although the number of soldiers and ships went up, they were not controlled by a single person. Sure, technically Dark Lord could command everything inside his Empire, but reality did not allow that.

Everyone, including Naga Sadow, had a private force only at their beck and call. Naga Sadow would give control of his military immediately if it was required of him, but Dark Lord appeared to be content with what he had.

There was no desire to conquer, or even simply go to war in the old Dark Lord anymore. It was treason to even think so, but for Naga Sadow, the Dark Lord was getting weaker and weaker as the time passed. It was still the Lord's personal strength that held him back from making a move.

He had no wish of watching the Empire he loved crumble because of some fool's lack of vision.

The Council he just attended showed how the highest members of Aristocracy weren't happy with the power they had within the Empire, but none of them wished to attack outside when they could exploit weaknesses of the other aristocrats.

Even his mentor Simus was not helping him in the Council. How could they not the increasing weakness of the Empire?

Getting the approval of the Council in an honest way had become impossible, the Dark Lord didn't even let the topic open. It was time for making all of them see what he was seeing. In the visions, the Force had shown the destruction of his Empire, and they dared to ignore them!

* * *

Ludo Kressh listened to that damned Naga Sadow's words during the council once more. The mentally challenged man was going to ruin them all with his obsession with their ancestors' enemies.

His actions were pushing the country to destruction. They were not ready for any kind of war, let alone against a Republic 18.000 years older than their Empire! Honestly, how that idiot couldn't see the difficulty it would prove?

They didn't even have a hyperspace route to follow, let alone any kind of information on the technology levels. Their whole technology came from their ancestors when they were elevating primitive Sith.

Who knew what kind of technology the Republic achieved with their galaxy-spanning resources in the last two thousand years, when they were bickering between them instead of focusing on elevating the Empire.

On top of that, the soldiers didn't believe the existence of the Republic, let alone thought them as an enemy. If they were to order the army to fight mythical enemies, there would be either revolts or a massive amount of desertion.

No matter what Naga Sadow thought, the Empire didn't need any more enemies. They first needed to crush any and all dissenters, returning the Empire to its height. First look inwards, before turning their eyes outwards, his mentor always instructed him, and it never let him down. It wasn't going to now.

Since Naga Sadow couldn't stop his yammering, and the Great Marka Ragnos didn't have time to handle him, perhaps he could arrange something.

Yes, an assassination perhaps. That could work...

* * *

**If someone wants to beta the story, I'd be grateful.**


End file.
